You’re equating the violation of a solemn oath to serve, fight (and possibly die) for your country, with swiping a candy bar? You must have some larger point that you forgot to make, as your comparison is absolutely puerile.
My own experience:
At 17, I had gotten into a huge fight with my parents one Saturday just as they were leaving for work. I was extremely pi$$ed off at them. While I was still fuming a Marine recruiter called and gave me his pitch. I thought “heh, this’ll show 'em” and I said OK just to spite my parents (my grandmother was adamantly opposed to anyone in our family joining the military). He came and picked me up and took me down to the recruiting station to take my physical and take the ASVAB. He handed me some paperwork and advised me that my mom had to sign the papers in order for my enlistmen to be valid. Imagine the shock on my face when my mom actually SIGNED THE RELEASE! Turns out she was signing the paper to spite me back in turn. After a few weeks we both regretted what we had done, as it was done out of anger toward each other rather than a desire to improve myself or establish a career.
I started asking how I could get out of DEP. Everything I was being told indicated that I was stuck. However, during one DEP meeting, I happened to overhear one of my classmates talking to the recruiters, informing them that he had to go to summer school in order to graduate (at the time this happened - mid 80s, a high school diploma was a requirement). They informed him that he had two choices: a) push back his actual basic training date or b) drop from DEP altogether. I heard that and realized that all I needed to do was NOT GRADUATE. So I promptly stopped participating in my worst class, and eventually flunked it. And sure enough, I was given the same two options, and I chose being dropped from DEP.
After several attempts at college and a series of minimum-wage jobs, I realized that I needed something else, so in '91 I enlisted into the Navy and served a term before being medically discharged. If it weren’t for the medical discharge, I would probably still be in today.
So I take offense at some of the remarks being made in this thread. You have NO idea what events/thoughts/ideas led this girl to the decision to enter the delayed entry program, and what other factors may have played a role. The OP is looking for ways to help this girl recover from what was, for this girl, a bad decision and is not looking for a character assesment or judgement of this girl.
here (from about.com) is an article describing how to request discharge from the Delayed Entry program. Hope this helps.
critter42
I honestly don’t know the military background of anyone making posts to this thread, but I have to say that if you haven’t been through the process, then you probably don’t have a clue about what you are talking about. My day in the MEPS station (I think that’s what it was called back then) was by far the most pressure filled day of my life to that point. There is an incredible amount of fear, pressure, intimidation, and boredom all rolled into one. If you think a used car salesman or an insurance salesman can put pressure on a person, you haven’t seen anything until you see the full weight of a government building devoted to enlisting adolescents put to bear against a lone teen. Maybe some of the enlistment stations are different, but mine was incredibly intimidating.
In my case I fulfilled my enlistment, served my country, and made the best of it. I think that gives me room to have an informed opinion (this has turned into opinion after all) about this topic. Even though I did fulfill my enlistment, I wouldn’t think any less of anyone who got out of delayed entry. It’s much better for everyone involved to just back out if it’s not what you want to do.