I figure with the possibility of the wars heating up, now would a good time to prepare lit/resources to demoralize military memebers and give advice on how to get out early.
Any one got any materials or links related to this?
Edit: found this which might be useful for legal avenues of quitting early
Honorably? Unless something major has changed recently, it's Medical Discharge or Suicidal Ideations. There's not a lot of options on getting out of your contract.
Cannabis. Its an "other than honerable" or dishonorable discharge where you lose all benefits, but it gets you out in a couple of months.
Its almost a bad thing that "dont ask, dont tell" is gone. Its 100% an improvement to equality, but it was an easier out that anyone could use with a "general" discharge, leaving you with all the benefits.
Failed drug tests, maybe? Gotta make sure you're not caught with anything though.
Honestly, I don't know much about it. When you're in, it'd be unlikely you'd hear much about it. It's definitely not a sure thing. Interesting little article that popped up searching on it.
Based on objection to a certain war.
I honestly thought that would be allowed as I can't think of a reason someone would have the religious belief and also sign up.
I mean, I could see why they wouldn't. After all, that's the thing they really want you for. Can't have you signing up for a job and benefits just to bail when they when they need you to be expendable.
I'd imagine it's harder to pull off after you've joined. But I'm curious about this too.
I guess what I'm really looking for are accounts of people quitting the military before their time is up, without suffering extreme consequences
Anecdotal, but I was given a general discharge after failing a piss test and having a run in with a psych eval. G.I. Bill benefits were off the table, but nobody has ever given a shit about my dd214
My take on it is that people can change their minds or join a certain religion even after joining so they have to allow for people to do that. It does bar one from ever rejoining but I don't think that'd be a concern for this group.
I actually do have some resources for this since I’ve done it myself. I’m on mobile and will try to find more later, but off the top of my head, this is a big one: https://girightshotline.org/ A big part of the military’s strategy for keeping people in is scaring soldiers with stories about how getting kicked out will ruin their life, and this group can help them navigate UCMJ stuff.
Not sure how active they are these days, but IVAW used to be a good resource. I’d also be curious if Mike Prysner has a website somewhere with this kind of info, and there are probably other anti-war vet groups that might provide some useful resources on this.
I’ll come back to this post later, but fucking with military recruitment/retention is cool and good and I’m glad you’re bringing this up.
Military regulations often allow for a great deal of command discretion. Consequently outcomes can vary from person to person.
If you are a junior enlisted member trying to get out of the military, please take this message to heart. You may not have been in a situation to learn this lesson before. I've known a member who used a CBD product and turned themselves in voluntarily who got an honorable discharge, and I've known members who got unfavorable discharge characterizations for the same. Command discretion is extremely broad.
