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CHAPTER 9
ADMINISTRATIVE SEPARATIONS
As an LN you will work with administrative
separations at some point in your career. Generally the
nuts and bolts of administrative separations are done at
commands other than naval legal service offices
(NLSOs). However, even the NLSOs are involved
during certain aspects of the processing procedure. As
a senior LN resigned to an independent duty billet, you
may not only be required to take care of all the paper
work required for administrative discharge processing,
you may also be assigned to act as the recorder. So, no
matter where you may be assigned as an LN,
administrative separations are just another dimension to
your rating. Therefore, it is to your advantage to be very
familiar with the regulations and procedures of
administrative separation processing. In this chapter
you will be given a general working knowledge of the
regulations and procedures of administrative
separations. However, it is advised that whenever you
are involved in administrative separations, review all
reference material as two cases are never the same.
The policy of the Navy is to promote readiness by
maintaining high standards of conduct and performance.
To maintain these standards, it is necessary to provide a
variety of means for the orderly and timely
administrative separation of naval personnel to:
make sure the Navy is served by individuals
capable of meeting required standards of duty,
performance, and discipline;
maintain standards of performance and conduct
through
appropriate
separation
and
characterization of service that stress the
traditional concept of honorable military service;
and
achieve authorized force levels and grade
distribution.
The Navy separation policy strengthens the concept
that military service is a calling different from any
civilian occupation.
When persons enter the naval service, the Navy
invests substantial resources in their training,
equipment, and related expenses. Separation before
completion of a period of obligated service represents a
loss of that investment while requiring increased
accessions.
Conversely, retaining individuals in the
naval service who will not or cannot conform to naval
standards of conduct, discipline, and performance
creates a high cost in terms of pay, administrative efforts,
degradation of morale, and substandard mission
performance.
Both situations represent an inefficient
use of limited defense resources.
We will use the terms discharge and separation in
discussing the termination of a service obligation.
SECNAVINST 1910.4A defines these terms as follows:
. Discharge—complete severance from all naval
status gained by the enlistment or induction concerned.
. Separation—a general term that includes
discharge, release from active duty, transfer to the Fleet
Reserve or Retired List, release from custody and
control of the military services, transfer to the Individual
Ready Reserve (IRR), and similar changes in active or
reserve status.
TYPES OF ENLISTED
ADMINISTRATIVE SEPARATIONS
There are two types of separations given by the
Armed Forces of the United States to enlisted service
members:
(1) punitive discharges and (2)
administrative separations.
PUNITIVE DISCHARGES
Punitive discharges are authorized punishments of
courts-martial.
They can only be awarded as an
approved sentence of a court-martial following a
conviction for a violation of the Uniform Code of
Military Justice (UCMJ).
There are two types of punitive discharges. The first
type is a dishonorable discharge (DD). A DD can only
be adjudged by a general court-martial (GCM) and is a
separation under dishonorable conditions. The second
type of punitive discharge is a bad-conduct discharge
(BCD). A BCD can be adjudged by either a GCM or a
special court-martial (SPCM) and is a separation under
conditions other than honorable.
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