Quick Question

rd2849

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Feb 18, 2016
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I have a friend who knows a recent Naval Academy grad that once his four years at the Academy were done, he received a letter thanking him and letting him know that his services were no longer required. No mental or physical problems. How rare is this? Is it just a handful or is it 10% of every class. My friend said this guy said its 10% but that is hard for me to believe. Can anybody shed some light on this? (he graduated roughly five years ago....) Thanks!!
 
If it wasn't mental, medical, academic, or conduct it simply does not happen.

I am sure there are the rarest of exceptions - But anytime something like this would happen - there is a story behind it.

I think President Carter was allowed to leave the Navy before his commitment was up because his father died and was needed to help run the family business, but that wasn't 'not serving' after graduating from USNA.

If it happened during 'Don't ask Don't Tell' and he told, USNA may have made it all just 'go away'

USNA is not in the habit of spending $400 - $500 K on training someone to become a commissioned officer and then 'randomly' deciding not to commission them.

I hired a person once that was an SA graduate. He failed a drug test that he insisted was a false positive. His original sample wasn't tested immediately nor were the results conveyed to him in a timely manner. Too much time had passed to take another test that would refute the false positive. It became such a headache that the USAF allowed him to resign his commission with nothing negative on his separation, but he was required to pay back some portion of the cost of his education.
 
Extremely rare. Must be extenuating circumstances. More to the story...
 
While anything is possible, I would say it is extremely rare and there is more to the story than meets the eye. You may have heard the term "Needs of the Navy." The Needs of the Navy trumps all, and if Navy manning or budgeting was such that they needed to draw down or not "hire" as many new Ensigns, it would be possible, but I suspect they would cut accessions from OCS and NROTC before letting a higher priced USNA grad go. In addition, I would also presume there was some Reserve obligation.

I suspect there is something missing from the story. I am aware of the Navy releasing young officers from their commitment after they washout or DOR from flight training. Historically, if you left flight training , you would be reassigned to another community, usually SWO. However, with current manning levels , it is possible to be RIF'd if you don't make it through flight training .
 
Every once in awhile, too many are commissioned across all sources. Some are offered the opportunity to resign with an honorable discharge and no obligation. We had a sponsor mid alumni at Pensacola in the mid-2000's this happened to.

10% of an entire class would be unlikely.
 
I would say there is more to this story than is being told. I can't recall anywhere in the last 25+ years that USNA had just let people go obligation free immediately upon commissioning. My suspicion is this person went to training for something such as pilot or subs and was dropped for some reason (grades, medical, performance) and then was given a thanks, but no thanks letter. There have been years the Navy has let first tour SWOs who didn't earn pins in time involuntarily leave and those who had earned them leave early if they wanted. More than likely it's one of these scenarios.
 
This was happening at flight school back in the late 00's from what I recall when I was there. People that washed out would get the ole "thanks for your service" and be sent on their way. I definitely recall ROTC folks and I believe I heard of at least a couple Academy, but that could be poor memory recall. I haven't heard of that recently though but I have less of a connection now.
 
Never heard of it happening at USNA other than for medical reasons or if the person is a student from another country, in which case his/her obligation (if any) is determined by his/her country and military service. Agree with KP that it can happen if you flunk out of your training program (e.g., aviation, subs) or fail to qualify in your warfare specialty.

Note that medical reasons need not be "obvious." I had a classmate who almost didn't commission due to a combination of terrible allergies, multiple fractures of his leg that didn't heal well, and something else. He did make it (really wanted to) but had to go restricted line.

Also, there are a very few who don't graduate at the last minute -- typically due to very serious conduct issues or an honor issue. It's not career enhancing.
 
This was happening at flight school back in the late 00's from what I recall when I was there. People that washed out would get the ole "thanks for your service" and be sent on their way. I definitely recall ROTC folks and I believe I heard of at least a couple Academy, but that could be poor memory recall. I haven't heard of that recently though but I have less of a connection now.
I read on someone's blog how he went to Air Force UPT and realized he didnt want to fly and he quit. He still wanted to stay in the AF, I think he wanted to go into Intel. I guess he had to go to some board and the board would decide what his future in the Air Force was. Dont remember all the of details, but his was the last board for the year, and basically everyone except 1 or 2 who were reviewed by the board were basically kicked out of the Air Force. To make matters worse, the Air Force wanted to be repaid for his scholarship at AF ROTC (could have been the academy, dont remember). Which is insane as he didnt quit the AF, he was fired. From what I read on his blog later, I think he made some initial payments to the AF but was later let him off the hook by the AF. Must have been a PR disaster. People were posting on his blog that the AF would have preferred he washed out of UPT and not have quit. He was working on the theory that he didnt want to waste the AF time and money by either failing UPT or not be interested in flying
 
^^ Probably why you should be wary of what you read on personal blogs, since all of the facts might not be accurately presented. What AF chose to do may not be the same as USNA. When the story is second-hand from a "friend of a friend", most likely you are only hearing the part of the story the person wanted to tell.
 
I actually have some experience with this from a very close friend. He was an engineering major and was academically separated from ROTC and left school because he lost the scholarship and went to school to commission in the first place. His whole process of negotiating what exactly would happen in regards to payback was done through a very, very long conundrum of phone calls and conferences and snail mailing documents to all kinds of agencies. However, he pled his case of essentially going to such a rural, podunk high school (no hate here, I went to an even lesser regarded school in the same county) that he simply wasn't prepared in any way for college, much less for an engineering degree and he gave an honest effort. He was let off the hook.
 
What may/may not have happened to someone in ROTC may not be the same as how USNA handles this situation.
 
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