Posted: 5/14/2007 1:19:16 PM EDT
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Quick back ground, i'm 26, have a wife and a 4 month old son. i enlisted in december of 2006 for the PA Army National Guard. i was scheduled to go to Basic Combat training on March 2nd. from december through my ship date i drilled with a Recruit Sustainment detatchment during my units weekend drills. a week before my ship date the PA Guard sends all new recruits to week long Pre-Initial Entry Training at Fort IndianTown Gap, PA. now here's my problem, on the last day of Pre IET training, during morning PT i really screwed up my knee. i tried to hide it from the drill SGT but it got to the point where i couldn't walk. the next day the other recruits shipped out to Basic. I inturn had a long bus ride home. I found out i will be recieving an Entry Level Separation because i did not list my previous knee injurys on my medical at MEPS. now i have to have surgery to correct the injury to my knee. What i want is to stay in the Guard, get healed up and get back to good psyical shape and ship out to Basic. i don't want to be Discharged and then try to do it all over again down the road. I'm not one to just roll over and say that was the best i could do. my question is; what, if anything, can i do to stay in the Guard and serve out at least the six+2 years i enlisted for. If there are any high ranking Guardsmen out there i could really appreciate the help to stay in and serve. Hooah! Thanks for your help Pfc. Chris Smith |
Chris- There is where they're gonna get you. I know why you did it, and the motivation to "hide" it. And actually admire your dedication for it, trying to get in. However, non-disclosure is basically lying, and the military is gonna look down pretty hard on that. hat Best of luck, but I wouldn't get your hopes too high. I know that's not the news you wanted, but that's how I, as a SNCO, see it. |
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i just got done talking to a local Sfc. and explained the situation. he told me to get the surgery and get healed up. once i do that and get the discharge papers try to re-enlist in the Guard, if the Guard doesn't want to accept me back in then he will pull some strings with his chain of command to help me enlist into his Reserve unit. having had some previous injuries to my knee, my recruiter told me not to put anything down on my MEPS papers. "What MEPS don't know won't hurt." i had to take one waiver for my eyesight in my left eye. but when i was doing weekend drills i was always praying that nothing would happen to my knee. i never had surgery to my knee prior to this happening but i had sustained 3 injurys to my same knee over the past 5 years that MRIs never showed enough damage to warrant any type of surgery. i hope that i can heal up and try again in the future. |
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he told me that i would probably have to take a waiver on my knee, but that it should not be too big a hassel for him. hell as for my recruiter, i've been hunting with him for 8 years now and did trust him. my mistake. my NCOIC even told me that he set me up for disaster, knowing full well i had a bad knee. when i was doing my weekend drills there was a corpral who was wounded in Iraq. Cpl. Humberger, he lost his leg right at the knee and 3 feet of his intestines. he is now in the process of going back to Iraq to finish out his tour. if he is able to do that i don't see why i shouldn't be allowed to serve. |
The reasons are varied but you theoretically could have a bum knee, come to the Guard and not tell, "injure" said knee and collect a check every month until you die, rippinmg off the gov't for injuries they are not responsible for. OTOH the guy getting blown up in Iraq is not fraudulantly enlisting, etc. That is the biggest thing about disclosure of prior injuries. Most anything is waivable theses days but since you enlisted under false pretenes you are probably gonna have to sit it out and find something else non-military to fulfil this desire.. In addition, your ability to re-enlist is determined by the RE code on your DD-214. RE-3 or higher and it's most likely gonna take a Congressman to get it done. Im thinking it says something like "Entry Level Seperation- Erroneous Enlistment. RE-3 or RE-4. Sux and I wish you the best.. |