Airman Doors
I don’t blame you one bit for erring on the side of caution.
That newspaper article shows just how seriously the military views such matters.
Yes. When I am placed on Title 10 orders I am immediately under the authority of the UCMJ, and they take great pains to tell you that because it’s a big deal. They are similar, but the penalty is not as severe. For instance: under the PCMJ, do you know what the penalties are for AWOL (not showing up for drill weekends)? Ha! They have the authority to put you on active duty or throw you out. In the active duty you’re looking at jail time.
Theoretically yes, but only during wartime (I’m not sure if the War on Terror counts). The last soldier to be executed for desertion was Pvt Eddie Slovik during WWII. In addition to being the only soldier put to death for desertion during WWII he was the first since the Civil War.
If you believe you gave up your rights, then yes: you did.
> I cannot malign the President or my chain of command publicly
Sure you can, write a letter to your congressman.
You still can’t yell fire in a crowded theater.
(In Georgia, someone cursing you is grounds for battery.)
> There are also organizations that I cannot join
Oh you can brag about joining SDS
but you might not get that security clearance.
> which is a violation of standard labor laws.
Labor laws are not part of the constitution.
> My quarters can be searched without warning.
You mean like someone’s locker at work?
You have more rights than someone with a locker at work.
Your search has to follow rules, they can’t just pick you.
> Punishment can be administered without a trial
Keyword: admin. Courts Martial follow due process.
> sodomy is a punishable offense
Case cite since the last Supreme Court decision on this?
That’s not publicly. And who cares about Georgia or crowded theaters? That’s totlly irrelevant.
Which means you can’t do the job and will be dismissed at the earliest convenience.
No, but we were talking about rights, not necessarily Constitutional rights.
Yes, they can. Yes, they do. And a person at work is on private property and can leave at any time, whereas I cannot.
Sure. Due process. The only due process there is in some cases is to request a court martial. Lose there and it gets much worse. Historically, approximately 90% of people taken to court martial are found guilty. Of course, we were taling about Article 15 non-judicial punishment, not court martials.
It’s still a part of the UCMJ. As long as it’s on the books you can be charged with it. You can challenge it if you like, I’d prefer not to.
Anything else?
There is no such exemption in the amendment. The courts came up with one through the legal process technically known as “sputtering ‘because I said so’”.
If you are referring to the barracks/dormitory, then the inspecting officer/NCO must do so following the established regulations. If you are referring to Military Family Housing, then you are mistaken.
Only per the applicable regulations.
That article is known as Non-Judicial Punishment (NJP). NJP is not a trail, and it is not a legal proceeding. It’s an administrative matter between you and your commanding officer. FTR, I despise that article and think that, although it’s defined as I just described, it’s a totally bogus glorification of a kangaroo court.
And many civilian companies have policies where you can’t “just quit” for X time after finishing some training that the company paid for. They tell you before you ask for financial aid - sounds just fine to me.
The Air Forces of many countries already have a problem keeping pilots for more than one tour of duty. Imagine if there was no obligation to stay after graduation?
“Gee, you know, sir, I’ve decided I’ll get better pay as a civilian pilot… seeya! Nice graduation ceremony, by the way!”
I’ll write this and then leave it at that since this is not GD.
Er, yes we were.
Granted some military workplace rules are stringent
but that can also work in your favor, but these are not constitutional rights.
Back to the OP:
As Nava pointed out, workplaces have rules about quiting. The military backs up it’s workplace rules with (constitutional) US laws so quiting can incur penalties. The penalties vary with the mood of the country, discharge to firing squad.
I can see how that could be good or bad. On the one hand, a CO might use it to just summarily give some guy he doesn’t like strict punishments (KP dutiy, latrine digging, PT, whatever) for various mistakes, but on the other hand, a CO might use it to keep a person’s mistake from ruining their career like taking it through a court martial might.
Of course, this all depends on the severity of the mistake. If a helmsman gets hopped up on whiskey and coke and runs a missile cruiser aground at Coney Island, I would tend to doubt his CO is likely to use Nonjudicial Punishment to deal with it (this, of course, assumes that his CO wouldn’t also be facing a court martial what with his very shiny cruiser being run aground with a coked up helmsman at the wheel).
OTOH, if this same helmsman instead just had a really bad day (Maybe his wife called to let him know that she was leaving him, and that she had run over his dog while backing out of the driveway, and by the way she took his car too, and he just found out that Stargate was cancelled), and he ends up getting in a brief fist fight with another sailor (assuming nobody seriously hurt) while off duty, the CO might just decide to handle it via NJP, make sure the sailor has learned his lesson, and not have the sailor possibly end up in much more serious trouble.
IIRC, when I joined the Navy I was informed that I was incurring a six-year obligation. Most people met that with four years active duty and two years in the Reserves; I simply signed for six years active duty.
Having served twenty years (21+, actually) on active duty, I am now what is normally considered a “retiree,” and am drawing “retirement pay.”
In actuality, however, I did not retire; I transferred to the Fleet Reserve. As a member of the Fleet Reserve, I am subject to recall at the needs of the Navy, and am therefore required to keep myself physically fit, inform the Navy of my new address every time I move, and maintain a full seabag (ie, a complete set of uniforms). In return, I am paid a monthly retainer cheque based on my total time on active duty and my monthly base pay at the time of my transfer.
When total time on active duty + total time in Fleet Reserve equals thirty years, I will be officially retired; at that time I will actually begin drawing retirement pay (which coincidentally will exactly equal my FR retainer cheques), and will finally be able to throw away those uniforms. Until then, however…
I knew a senior chief (E8) who was all set to retire - he was on terminal leave, had already started his new (civilian) job, &c - when the Navy called him back and told him he was going to have to go to sea again for a couple more years. I was quite surprised (though I’m sure I wasn’t as surprise as he was - to run into him here on base, in uniform, when I thought he had already been a cop in Indiana for a year…
It’s an interesting nitpick however. Police (local, state), firemen, medical and federal law enforment agencies are certainly more relevant to the maintenance of “societal order” than the military. AFAIK all those jobs are pretty much “employ at will”. And yet you don’t often see cops say “screw this gunfight! I quit!” or firemen say “This blaze is a bit larger than what I signed up for.”
I would guess you can’t quit the military because the assumption is that when the military is actually needed, they are REALLY needed. In other words, it’s an emergency do dire that not only can you not quit, they may actually need to press you into service whether you want to go or not.
As a country we have more or less gotten away from this idea because our role in the world is more of “world cop”. For the most part, the military has been fighting low to medium intensity conflicts against technogically inferior enemies where there is not an imediate and obvious threat to the US.
After reading this thread, I checked Wikipedia on Eddie Slovick. If that article is accurate, I really feel bad for that guy! It looks like he really thought, and was right to think, that he was headed for prison, not execution, when he announced his intention not to fight in the battle.
-FrL-
For Army, Air Force, Coast Guard personnel, and those Navy and Marine Corps personnel assigned to shore duty, they can decline NJP. Those Navy and Marine Corps personnel embarked on a vessel cannot decline NJP nor can they appeal the finding of the CO holding the NJP (they can, however, appeal the severity of the sentence).
What are the laws relating to the police officers and fire fighters when faced with such situations? Can they be held liable for “failing to peform their lawfully required duties” or whatever legal terminology would stick?
Only Coasties ashore can decline NJP for CM; those underway, like the Navy and MC, have no such choice.
Thanks, Scruloose, for that correction. On a semi-related note, one groundpounder dude sometime in the last year and a half initially declined to face NJP and when the court-martial convening authority declined to convene such a court, the dude’s CO again asked him if he would like to have the matter disposed of at NJP. Get this: he agreed! What a moron.
I believe that one of our own posters was all set to retire from the army after 20 when Gulf II erupted. That poster was told to get ready to deploy! Luckily, it was a false alarm but it played hell with their plans to buy a house, get moved, etc.
Heh - I wonder what he thought his options were at that point…
Major: Johnson! The convening authority has declined to convene a court for your case… You know what that means, right?
PVT Johnson: N n no sir, what?
Major: The Hague, Johnson! The International Court of Justice, that’s what!! They can sentence you to hard labor in Siberia!! FOREVER!!! Plus, their rules of evidence are a little loose, if you know what I mean. Or we can still do that NJP thing if you want.
PVT: Uh, NJP’s cool sir, if that’s OK with you, sir?