Discharge Review

[john999]

I am asking the Discharge Review board to grant that I was discharged because of medical reasons. I have the SMR's that show diagnosis and treatment for a emotional disorder including a hosptialization. I also have a psychiatrist's report that reviewed my SMR's and says that the military misdiagnosed me with a personality disorder and not the panic and dissocosiative disorder that started in Vietnam. The lawyer I talked to told me not to get my hopes up but that I should try and send the board something to beef up my appeal. The board has my medical records now. Any ideas on what would be good to beef up my evidence to change the nature of the reasons for discharge. I was given a discharge due to unsuitability which is bogus because I had already been in the service for 28 months. The concept that I was having a relapse back to the condition that got me in the hospital never entered the Army's mind.

[Hoppy]

Wings

Is it possible that the personality disorder disorder regs are not an issue. I thought that John was re-diagnosed and later service connected. Aren't there regs that apply to a change of diagnopsis or re-diagnosis that the review boards have to consider. You know I have given this much thought over the years. It is all baried so deep in my brain it would take explosives to dig it up.

Wings, see my post on social chat

Edited October 20, 2006 by Hoppy

[Wings]

Wings

Is it possible that the personality disorder regs are not an issue. I thought that John was re-diagnosed and later service connected. Aren't there regs that apply to a change of diagnopsis or re-diagnosis that the review boards have to consider. You know I have given this much thought over the years. It is all baried so deep in my brain it would take explosives to dig it up.

Wings, see my post on social chat

Hoppy, I don't have a lot of experience with the boards, just my case and John C's, ADAF Hadit member , BUT I have read (dare I say) hundreds Board decsions ... And that's what I reccomend to anyone before they advance their docket: read HUNDREDS of cases before your final appeal because these guys have heard it all!!

Honestly, if the newer regulation is significantly superior to the old regulations in terms of fairness and justice, "equity and propriety" (the silver bullets) - then they CAN apply the new Reg's sympathetically but they don't have to if they don't want to! Whatever the old regulation stated, they can and will apply literally and without mercy.

These Military Review Boards are NOT the same as the DVA and there is no love lost between the two: they will tell you over and over that each has their own statutes.

The Board will tell you that a VA diagnosis can change over time, for better and worse, and that "what is diagnosed 30 years later" is of no consequence to the military mission. I think you have to beat them on PROCEDURE. Did they follow their own rules? And, the procedures for dealing with injury disability (psychologically and otherwise) WHILE active duty are mapped out in their own regulations.

Depending on the years served active duty, military regulations can range from the sublime to the absurd !

I don't know what YEAR John was discharged (need to find that out), but after spending no less than 5 hours trying to track down the now obsolete AR 635-212, with NO ON-LINE references, I suspect it was an truly ABSURD regulation: one that caused untold grief and man hours !

Can you imagine the VOLUMES of Military rules and regulations that have gone down in history; what a nightmare LOL!

New Laws are supposed to be superior to the old, that way we know we're EVOLVING - right?!

The last pleading before the board is for Clemancy ... but not first ...

It's gettn' late, Good-night ;-) ~Wings

JOHN999 - - there's some good old regs from your war years here: Collections/Army Regulations

AR 40 Medical Services

AR 600 Personnel-General

AR 635 Personnel Separations

AR 635 Personnel Separations

AR 635-40 Physical Evaluation for Retention, Retirement, or Separation Feb 1975 (28.3 MB .PDF)

AR 635-100 Officer Personnel May 1989 (18.7 MB .PDF)

AR 635-200 Enlisted Personnel Oct 1982 (38.3 MB .PDF)

AR 635-200 Enlisted Personnel Jul 1966 (93.9 MB .PDF)

Pentagon Library http://www.hqda.army.mil/library/homepage.htm

[john999]

I was rediagnosed at the VA hospital within one year of discharge. The personality disorder was just used to justify the 635-212 discharge. The biggest problem is that there is a 15 year time limit for a discharge review in front of the board. After that you have to go to Correction of Military Records and they decide if it is in the interest of justice to even review the issue in question. I talked to a sharp lawyer buddy of Alex Humphreys and he told me I had a shot but it was slim because so much time had passed and they look at the records as they were at the time sort of like a CUE. I guess my hope is that since they were in such a hurry to get me out they messed up on procedures like no discharge physical.