Expert: Jason Grabill - 3/24/2009

Question
my name is nick i went to boot camp with ease went home did ten days of leave 30 days of recruiter assistance then went to soi made it half way through grunt school an like a idoit i didn't like it an went ua for two weeks came back on my own. when i got back the base psych doc said that if i didn't like it he could get me out and he did i ended up getting and uncharacterized discharge but now i have an re4 and really i need someone to just tell me how to get that changed to a 3 so that i can go into another branch or if im not able go back in the military how will this affect me on getting a good job thank you for your time

Answer
Nick:

 Congratulations on screwing your life up.  Don't expect sympathy from most Marines for doing this.  

 Time at this point is your only hope.  Live a stellar life, volunteer in the community, and do the best you can do.  In about 3-5 years, you can apply to Headquarters, Marine Corps, for your discharge to be upgraded (because at this point,you can't enlist into anything else, nor should you until you get your head on right), and you'll have some references to tell them what an upstanding citizen you are and what you've done for the community since you came back.  That also means no criminal issues, drugs, alcoholism, etc.  

 Your job prospects with a federal, state, or local (city/county) gov't job (even as a janitor in the local school) are not good but not impossible. You'll be asked about that RE-code and you'll have to explain.  In today's economy, that's not good.  You'll also be competing against people who did what they were supposed to do and therefore have 'veterans preference', which means they get hired, by law, before anyone else.

 Regular job prospects, believe it or not, this won't affect you greatly.  You don't have an 'honorable' discharge, but it's not a 'bad conduct' discharge, either.  As far as a 'good' job goes, again, if you are competing with veterans who have good discharges and who did there time, expect to lose out.

 Consider college or trade school if you can do it, money wise, and work from there.  That will help your eventual upgrade paperwork as well.  Certainly worth a shot.

 Good luck.  You've chosen a difficult path which was not the 'easy way out' that you perhaps thought it would be.  Hopefully, others can learn from your mistake and realize that it's better to see it through than just bail, if nothing else because of the massive regrets you have.

Jason