You can get "other than honorable" discharges and releases without court martial procedures: administrative, general, etc...
The President can also revoke a commission for cause.
Just thinking out of the box.
True. It's important to keep in mind that officers don't receive dishonorable or bad conduct discharges as a result of court-martial. Officers receive dismissals, which are equivalent to dishonorable discharges.
An officer can offer to resign in lieu of court-martial and try to bargain his way to an honorable characterization of service, but such an offer is rarely approved.
The provisions cited by the New York Sun govern involuntary administrative separations of reserve officers, and the service characerizations can range from fully honorable to less than honorable. The board of officers hearing the case makes a recommendation both as to sufficiency of grounds for discharge and service characterization.
It may be that Kerry faced a board and was involuntarily separated, but that the board recommended an honorable discharge. If so, that is still significant but much less of a bombshell.
Yes I know. I was not speaking of Admin type of discharges. The poster that I replied to talked about Kerry recieveing a dishonorable discharge. Those apply to enlisted folks. Officers are dismissed from service (IOW there is no such thing as a "Dishonorable Discharge" for a comissioned officer.)