Involuntary Separated Midshipmen

AquaRain

10-Year Member
5-Year Member
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Nov 29, 2008
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So the military as a whole is doing cut backs, including all of the service academies. I recently got separated for my first and only honor offense and I am looking at a very large bill and I want to enlist but waivers are needed and the Navy does not need that many people. I know they get a discharge code of RE-3K meaning "Dis-enrolled from Naval Academy, not considered qualified for enlisted status." I know some personally who have been separated and none of them have done great things with their lives. Many are addicts and one even died. Is there any hope for me or anyone else that made mistake that cost them everything? Or is that just it, no hope for a mistake? If there is anyone out there who was separated in the pas after they signed their 2 for 7's and made a decent life for themselves, I'd really like to hear it?
 
Don't look back...

My son had a roommate that was separated during 2nd class year. He had gotten away with a few things, but finally got nailed. He immediately enrolled in another university (for second term) took some extra classes, joined the AROTC there and graduated on time. He is now a Captain in the Army. I bet no one in his unit even knows he went to the academy.

He was lacking in character at the academy. He realized his mistakes and worked hard to overcome them. You can too. Do you have the desire to do so?
 
It's up to you to turn adversity into success. Forget what happens to "most people" and focus on what you can do to make your way in life.

Learn from your "mistake." Resolve to be an honorable person. Focus on your future in college and beyond.

You clearly can do it if you have the desire!
 
So the military as a whole is doing cut backs, including all of the service academies. I recently got separated for my first and only honor offense and I am looking at a very large bill and I want to enlist but waivers are needed and the Navy does not need that many people. I know they get a discharge code of RE-3K meaning "Dis-enrolled from Naval Academy, not considered qualified for enlisted status." I know some personally who have been separated and none of them have done great things with their lives. Many are addicts and one even died. Is there any hope for me or anyone else that made mistake that cost them everything? Or is that just it, no hope for a mistake? If there is anyone out there who was separated in the pas after they signed their 2 for 7's and made a decent life for themselves, I'd really like to hear it?

My opinion, it shouldn't take more than one honor offense to disenroll someone from an academy, but I appreciate the fact that you admit you committed one.

There is PLENTY you can do with your life. I have plenty of classmates who either left voluntarily or were disenrolled involuntarily, and the vast majority have moved on to something else... and have been very successful with whatever they've tackled.

No doubt, if you want to succeed, you can and will. Let the academy monkey off your back. You committed an honor offense and you were shown the door. You weren't the first and you won't be the last. Move past that, and define your own life. This experience is a chapter in your life.... now you just have to go on and write more chapters. You'll mkae more mistakes, some minor, some major. Learn from them and keep moving forward.

But you need to stop beating yourself up about it. It's over with, done. Don't get bogged down in it. Turn the page and move on.
 
+1 to LITS. I expect some day, a long time from now, you might look back on this as being one of the formative events of your life and actually helped you to become successful at whatever it is you end up doing. We learn and grow through adversity far more than we do our successes. Good luck and don't relent. Step 1: finish that college education.
 
My opinion, it shouldn't take more than one honor offense to disenroll someone from an academy, but I appreciate the fact that you admit you committed one.

There is PLENTY you can do with your life. I have plenty of classmates who either left voluntarily or were disenrolled involuntarily, and the vast majority have moved on to something else... and have been very successful with whatever they've tackled.

No doubt, if you want to succeed, you can and will. Let the academy monkey off your back. You committed an honor offense and you were shown the door. You weren't the first and you won't be the last. Move past that, and define your own life. This experience is a chapter in your life.... now you just have to go on and write more chapters. You'll mkae more mistakes, some minor, some major. Learn from them and keep moving forward.

But you need to stop beating yourself up about it. It's over with, done. Don't get bogged down in it. Turn the page and move on.

Thanks. I really appreciate it. From all of you really. I am learning to put the past behind me but the really hard part is finding focus and not having so much shame. I think the shame is what really gets to people and leads them down the road to self destruction. I mean, it's not all bad. I go to a good school, I'm a double major in Secondary Ed and English and double minor in Theater and Creative Writing. The only problems is paying for school. Scholarships are not easy to come by so I'm living at home and driving upwards of 2 hours a day for school. It's not so bad. I'm saving $9,000 dollars a semester by not living on campus. Just relating to people and not being afraid of 'normal' life is hard for me.
 
Thanks. I really appreciate it. From all of you really. I am learning to put the past behind me but the really hard part is finding focus and not having so much shame. I think the shame is what really gets to people and leads them down the road to self destruction. I mean, it's not all bad. I go to a good school, I'm a double major in Secondary Ed and English and double minor in Theater and Creative Writing. The only problems is paying for school. Scholarships are not easy to come by so I'm living at home and driving upwards of 2 hours a day for school. It's not so bad. I'm saving $9,000 dollars a semester by not living on campus. Just relating to people and not being afraid of 'normal' life is hard for me.

I agree with the others. Move on and make the best of all that life still has for you. Wisdom is learning from your past mistakes. What you've posted here is more important than you know. Sure, there is an element of helping you work through all the feelings that you have but also less obvious is the unintentional help you are providing others by sharing your story.

There are many mids, future mids, future cadets, whatever that read these boards and they need to know just how fast you can be disenrolled for honor violations. By you sharing you are providing valuable information to those yet to go down that road.

Best of luck to you and like I said make the best of your situation. Maybe part of that is helping others to understand and avoid mistakes you've made.
 
AquaRain,

First, I don’t know the nature of your offense but unless it was egregious, you shouldn’t feel a whole lot of shame. Out of all the students in the U.S. that are enrolled in college right now, how many do you feel could have toughed it out as long as you did? It is unfortunate about your situation but the sad reality is, the majority of students at other colleges across the U.S. probably would not have made it as far as you, and I guarantee a vast majority of them would have stumbled into some offense, both minor and major.

I have had several classmates separate after signing their 2 for 7, most of them involuntary, but not after a single honor offense. I don't know the nature of your offense or your record but a) the Navy is definitely cutting back, and b) they may have felt that they could not "re-mediate" you in time before graduation.

It probably seems a little unfair.....I had one classmate who ended up plagiarizing a final paper for his ethics class and then lie about it when confronted. He was lucky enough to be allowed to re-take the ethics class the next semester but he had to do "remediation" for an undetermined amount of time until the honor board saw him fit. Lets not forget the football player who tested positive for marijuana and was retained. Other classmates of mine had rap sheets that were several pages long listing their offenses. Some graduated, some separated and are now enlisted, others enrolled in another college (you can easily transfer many of your classes for credit at other universities). About 2 weeks before my graduation, between academic boards and PRT failures, my class cut 35 people. I can’t speak for all of them but from what I hear, they are doing fine. I know at least one of them is actually enlisted in the Army!

If you truly wanted to serve...then the Navy is denying you that great opportunity. For this I am sorry! If serving still calls you though, then I would try to enlist, or pursue an officer package for another branch. If you make the decision that the military is not for you or you have other aspirations, then I would strongly recommend pursuing your college degree asap. It is the unfortunate reality that a bachelors degree today is the norm for getting your foot in the door in most companies/organizations. Try to take what you can from the experiences you gained at the academy and keep charging forward.
As far as the money is concerned, I firmly believe that if you invest in yourself and pursue your passion, things generally work out for the best (however, one should also know their limits!). If you are really struggling, there are companies (Verizon being just one of them off the top of my head) that will provide tuition assistance (approx. $8K/yr) for full time employees to help pay off their student loans/debt and even fund graduate school. I’m not sure how your “big bill” is structured or how it is classified. I know that for federal student loans, if you work for the government for 10 years and continually pay off your loans during that time, the remainder of your student loan is forgiven.

Of course there are other routes to earn money that don’t require any formal education. My best friend from the academy who graduated in 2011 and was separated due to a reduction in force in 2012 is now a full time trader. He made $210K last year before taxes. They won’t teach you that at the academies! Invest in yourself and pursue your passion, and you will be far happier and better off. Don’t let the debt cloud your judgment.
 
Let me start by saying this: I have a lot of respect for people who attend the academy and graduate from the academy. That is a very difficult school mentally, physically, and academically. It's an amazing accomplishment to complete such a hard program.

I will also say that if people were dis-enrolled from the academy from their first offense a lot more then I bet half the school would be gone.

A little about me. I was a Midshipmen at the academy for plebe summer and into my first semester of my plebe year. I saw a lot of good and a lot of bad. I did not complete the academy and decided to voluntarily separate for different reasons.

I do agree that you need to take your future into your hands and move forward and that you need to stop dwelling on the past but I also understand that the damages that the academy caused take a while to heal.

When I say damages this is what I mean: you were trained to believe it was the academy or no way. You went through three years of yelling, IT sessions, difficult classes that felt impossible to pass, limited studying, silly games that had nothing to do with the military and so much more. It was a brainwashing experience. So to have that stripped from you, when you believed in it, is very hard to accept and very hard to move forward from especially when it was first time offense.

I know how angry it is to watch people who really don't deserve to be there get a second chance. It happened when I was there. I also know how hard it was to let the academy go. Just because I voluntarily separated doesn't mean I came to that decision lightly. I had withdrawals when I left. I thought I was a terrible person. These are normal feelings that you are feeling.

The hardest part for you will be the money. Not just because you don't know how you are going to pay for it but because you will have that constant academy shadow while you are trying to heal. Leaving the academy's shadow is the hardest part.

Please remember that you really aren't alone and I know you are hurting. It's easy to read peoples motivational words it's another to feel them. You will feel better. You will feel inspired again. You will love yourself again. YOU WILL FIND PEACE.

This is how I have picked up my life since the academy: I go to school, I work at a great place, I do martial arts, I made new friends outside of the academy, I exercise, I laugh, and get out as much as I can. You can do the same. Get out from that shadow as much as you can.

Counseling helped me so much. I reached out for help. I am not ashamed to admit it either. I strongly encourage you to do the same.
 
AquaRain - you say that you're at a good school now, but if you want to stay in the maritime field, you might consider a transfer to one of the state maritime academies. Very good employment prospects and salaries to help get you back on your feet, and those nav classes that you took will come in handy. Just one of the many options open to you!
 
I am in counseling to readjust and recover. It helps a lot because I don't feel so worthless. Being kicked out when you're so close to graduation does make you feel like crap and like you don't even deserve to live even because you got separated. Having an RE-3K re entry code is not a good thing. But that's not the worst. The hardest part though is the shame I felt towards my family. I felt like I failed and still do sometimes if I beat myself up about it. But as long as you take one day at a time, things do get better. Having my family there for me was a huge help. Some people who are separated aren't so fortunate. I know I could have done better at USNA and should have but that won't change the present. What I can do now is focus on the task at hand which is finishing college by next year with my BA and BS. (Double Major) If I go back in the military, there will be a lot of things that I will do differently to be better as an enlisted member of the service. Sorry, I know I've taken up a lot of your guys time and interest with both my postings. But I'm glad I let what was bottled up in me go. I know some of you think I never took ownership of what happened. That's fine. That's your opinion. You're entitled to it. However, I have the right to tell my side of the story. That's my entitlement as an American. We all have our opinions. I just wanted to share mine.
 
dmn10
I understand you voluntary separated from USNA. I would respectfully ask, (I assume you were on leave awaiting separation) How long did it take for you to receive your discharge? (I also assume you received an Honorable discharge) additionally, what is the re-enlistment code on your DD214? Again, assuming a highly recommended for future Naval service recommendation was submitted and approved.
Thank you for your service.
 
AquaRain,
For goodness sake, please don't beat up on your self. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone. The greatness is, what we do to learn from them and what do we do to better our selves in the future. You obviously are a gifted individual to have even been offered an appointment at USNA. Additionally, you apparently were successful for years there. It is clear to those in the know, that one uses all that has been learned to strengthen themselves. You have learned a great deal thus far. Take this and run with it. The only shame I see here is if you let your mistake lead the way forward.
 
The hardest part for you will be the money. Not just because you don't know how you are going to pay for it but because you will have that constant academy shadow while you are trying to heal. Leaving the academy's shadow is the hardest part.

The sad part about separating from a service academy, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, people who know that you attended and did not graduate will always assume one of the following: 1) You did something egregious to be separated or 2) You couldn't cut it. They may never share that perception with you - but it will be there.

You can transfer from the University of Michigan to Eastern Michigan University and people will just shrug their shoulders and think nothing of it. Nobody ever views leaving a service academy as a "transfer". It is always seen as an epic failure.

As unfair as that may be - it is a prevalent attitude. It is not uncommon for that to weigh heavily on the separated midshipman because, often, they have the same view of themselves. The challenge is completely theirs to maintain their motivation, dignity and self-esteem ... and find a way to constructively move on with their life. Nobody can do it for you.
 
AquaRain,
For goodness sake, please don't beat up on your self. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone. The greatness is, what we do to learn from them and what do we do to better our selves in the future. You obviously are a gifted individual to have even been offered an appointment at USNA. Additionally, you apparently were successful for years there. It is clear to those in the know, that one uses all that has been learned to strengthen themselves. You have learned a great deal thus far. Take this and run with it. The only shame I see here is if you let your mistake lead the way forward.

I promise, I'm learning to let go and move forward. Regular college has kept me plenty busy and I am a better strong person for it.
 
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