Expert: Rod Powers - 1/18/2007

Question
My 21 year old son would like to enlist in the CG.  He was just turned down because he had a DUI in the summer of 2004.  He was told he had to wait five yrs to enlist in active duty.  Is this true to your understanding?  If so, if there any appeal process that we could do?  His local recruiter told him that his (the recruiter's) immediate superior told him that my son could not get in.

Answer
Hi Loie,

A DUI is disqualifying for joining any of the military branches.

With that being said, each of the military branches have their own procedures on granting possible waivers.

In large part, waivers are considered based on how bad that particular military service needs new applicants at that particular point in time. Right now, the Coast Guard and the Air Force have thousands of more applicants than they have slots for. In other words, those two active duty services aren't approving very many waivers right now (why should they? They have thousands more who want to join than they have room for).

I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is. Congress sets the maximum size of each military branch, and the services aren't allowed to go over that strength-limit. Because of the Coast Guard's relatively small size, they only need to recruit about 4,000 new recruits each year (compare that to the active duty Army, who needs 80,000 new recruits each year). For details, see: http://usmilitary.about.com/od/joiningthemilitary/a/06recruiting.htm

In other words, the Coast Guard can afford to be much more "choosey" when it comes to waiver consideration.

For more information about the United States Military, feel free to visit my military information website at: http://usmilitary.about.com

Hope this helps!

Rod Powers
http://usmilitary.about.com