I do not visit this board very often, but happened to check in tonight.
Just to clarify since I am the OP of this thread...
Son brought before board 3 weeks before graduation/commissioning, not 6 weeks
No, he did not realize he was 8 pounds overweight
His original DFAS bill was 4,000 a month for 3 years. He asked to reduce amount to less - than it was 1200 for 10 years, plus interest
Not dischargable debt. Cannot deduct interest on taxes, either.
Yes, we would have qualified for substantial financial aid for at least two years, as my husband was downsized out of his job.
Our elected representatives were of absolutely no help, whatsoever.
We retained a retired military attorney, which has helped him in completing paperwork for appeals.
If he had left ROTC of his own accord after freshman year, they would not have billed him for that year. They do if dissenrolled after that time if seeking payback.
It s at discretion of commanders what kind of payback - money or service - tgat they want.
Ironically, even though son was told he was dissenrolled three weeks before graduation/commissioning, the CO was nice enough to sign those papers the day my son should have been given his stripes. What a really sweet gesture, to twist that knife just a little more.
I would love to say I have seen the contract, but as I previously mentioned many posts ago, his battalion "misplaced" it long ago. We know it exists, yet when he asked for his file, it wasn't there. It was missing when he originally signed it in sophomore year. A name mixup, supposedly. Lots of shoddy paperwork over the course of multiple years in that battalion. Reports signed by CO months - or even years (not kidding) before son saw reports.
Never failed PT, not once.
Takeaway is, don't send your kid to a school that you cannot afford if scholarship is lost.
The other thing to remember is, don't ever screw up in ROTC. Ever. Big mistakes, little mistakes can add up to you being booted.
How many college scholarships do you know that can taken away retroactively for previous years studies, besides ROTC and Service academies? Anyone? Anyone? There aren't any that I know of.
It was not clear to us at any time during the application process that normal financial aid would not be processed the same way as for other students. If we had known, we would have encouraged him to attend the much lower cost school that he was accepted to.
Yes, he is an adult, now. He wasn't when applying for NROTC. I did a huge amount of research and never even heard of disenrollement orbit's ramifications until that day he contacted us with the news.
Every branch is different, and every CO s different. What is a kicking out offense in one battalion may get a warning in another.
Lots of things to learn from our situation. The only reason I post here periodically is to remind kids and their parents to use caution and read the fine print. We were dazzled by this dream come true for our son, not realizing that he would face this difficult situation at this age. This kid had wanted to serve since he was 11 or 12, and it was pretty shattering when that dream ended.
Ironically, we pushed him to apply for NROTC scholarship. He really had initially wanted to enlist.