Am I right about the General Discharge, I thought it could be done adminsitratively? I processed several people out of the Army due to unfitness.
You are correct in that the discharge can be characterized as Other Than Honorable. I don't believe it can be a General Discharge from NJP.
You are absolutely right about a general discharge. You can receive a general discharge without facing a court martial just for a unsat or pt failure. Uou have to wait until the end of you enlistment contract to appeal it and get it upgraded which is easy to do. Although you generally will not get a general unless its your first contract, if you unsat in your second or third you are generally only barred from re-enlistment but still eligable for a honorable discharge.
I did too, but it has been 35 years ago and things might be different today. The people I processed accepted a less than honorable discharge (called "Undesirable, for the good of the service," in those days) as an alternative to a Court Martial. Most of them wanted out of the military so bad they would accept it. As the processor one of my jobs was to explain in detail all the benefits they were giving up as a result of accepting this discharge. Most soldiers who had Vietnam service but got into some trouble were offered General Discharge (Discharge under honorable conditions) as deference to their service in Vietnam, but even they couldn't get one without being offered the alternative of a Court Martial. The military had so many drug addicted soldiers this was a way to avoid to overwhelming number of Court Martials that would have been required to process all these men. Things may be a lot different today in terms of procedure.