Somebody told me the other day he was discharged from the USMC “UD,” later changed to honorable. Anyone know what that means? I tried the benefits and separation manual but it doesn’t have anything beginning with a U.
I was curious so I went googling. UD seems to mean “Undesirable Discharge” and according to one site ranks in between a General Discharge and a Bad Conduct Discharge.
http://themilitarywallet.com/types-of-military-discharges/
Whatever acronym he’s meant he said the wrong one, they aren’t branch specific, this link has all of them.
Thanks! Using that I did some of my own googling and it seems to be the old term for “other than honorable.”
I recall “Less Than Honorable”.
Now, I thought under the “Less Than Honorable” classification was an Administrative Discharge, where although the person hasn’t done the one thing severe enough to rate a BCD from a court martial or NJP, he’s proven to be a general, all around pain in the ass, it’s only a matter of time, and the easiest way to get rid of him would be an Admin.
I was stationed with a guy who worked his way from E-4 to E-1 in about a year all via Captain’s Masts. After he made E-3, he copped an attitude. It got to the point when they found a baggie with some illegal green substance in his room, no one had the heart to pull the pin on him and report it upstairs. I figured an AD was on the way. :: shrug ::
An Uncharacterized Discharge is another term for Entry Level Separation. If I heard someone say they got a UD discharge (no, ive never actually heard it referred to as an initialism; rather, its always the full two words), I would think this is what he was talking about unless parts of his story made me think otberwise. Did he say how long he was in?
If he was a nonhacking little maggot in boot camp, and was discharged for poor performance before his 180th day of service, it would be an uncharacterized discharge. He could later have this changed to an honorable discharge to receie full veteran benefits by proving his poor performance was somehow caused by an injury received during training. As one possible example. Seems like something like that would take a lawyer to handle.
If it used to be the old term for OTH, that would make a lot more sense.
He didn’t remember his service dates except that it was before the 1990s and after Vietnam (he’s 61 and it was a contentious deposition). Thinking back, he did actually say “UD discharge” instead of just UD. I think I changed it in the OP because it didn’t sound right in my head.
He’s not eligible for VA benefits and didn’t have to file an appeal or anything to get it changed to honorable; apparently the DoD did that on its own and sent him an updated DD-214 a few years after he was out.