Marines Deserve Better

USMC Time Machine Is Camo Green

Allow me to take you back a moment in time, the year; 1972, the place; Camp Pendleton, California. The "war" in Vietnam is still dragging on and will be for another three years. Some 7,000 Americans are yet to die. In what some of us consider to be nothing more than a once- in -every -five year "purge" of the undesirables in the Corps, the Marines announce a "Drug Amnesty" Program. This means that anyone who wants to can get out, no questions asked, just belly up to the company office and file the paperwork. No counseling, no "do you realize what your'e doing?", no mentoring of any kind. 

At the time I happened to be the Personnel Chief of a Company attached to an Engineer Battalion. I was the guy that had to prepare the paperwork to process these discharges. Against orders from my superiors I would talk to some of these guys privately and on my own time to see what was motivating them. I cared about these men as individuals, men I had fought alongside, and I thought it was a terrible thing for them to do just to get away from the problems they were having in the Corps.

I knew most of these marines personally and drugs were not the problem. Stateside crap was killing them. These marines hated their superiors, hated the "Stateside Chickenshit", and just wanted out. Their real reasons ranged from not being able to handle a sadistic NCO to too many inspections. Unfortunately, if admitting to a drug problem could get them out, so much the better.

I can't remember how many marines I processed out during that period but each one broke my heart and there were more than a few. My First Sergeant was a tough old bird and OLD CORPS all the way. He forced me under threat of captains mast to notate on their DD-214 that reason for separation was for "DRUG ADDICTION."

Let me repeat, these marines were not drug addicts. Many of them had served tours in Vietnam and God only knows what may have happened to their health and state of mind since then. But do you think any one of them realized that they could be jeopardizing their future care without an honorable discharge?

The VA has discretion to grant full benefits in other-than-honorable or bad conduct discharge cases. It can still deny them benefits if the agency decides the underlying misconduct was "willful and persistent." A largely subjective decision according to VA officials.

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