Per FR member Captain Rhino:
Looked at Chief’s video.
Couple of points for clarification about the pages shown from his service record book (SRB). (BTW, the Chief is connected, this info is definitely not from a DD 214. This is an actual scan of his assignments page.):
1. Rifleman for two days.
This is just an admin entry to put him back on to a Marine Corps unit’s rolls after he returned from his initial recruit training and MOS training. Likely this reserve rifle company was providing admin support for all Marine Corps Reserve (MCR) Marines living in the general Omaha area. He was probably joined on 721106 so he could liquidate his travel claim and get his regular pay. The rifleman designation is a default entry. Once they processed his paperwork, he is transferred (by another unit diary entry) the next day (721107) to a MCR aviation utility unit in Lincoln, Nebraska. That’s were he is going to do his weekend drills.
2. Hanging around Lincoln.
He is joined to Marine Wing Utility Squadron 4 (MWUS-4) the next day (721108). MWUS-4 is a place you would expect a refrigeration mechanic to be assigned. The extract shown in the video for this period has standard entries: annual entries for audits and an entry showing him going onto annual active duty for training (ATD) and coming off it 2 weeks later. The last entry we were shown is of his transfer in December 1973. Since we lack the next entry (being joined to the new unit), we should not read too much into this entry. The earlier DD-214 extract shows him not returning to active duty until August 1974, so he was still somewhere in the reserves, perhaps at a unit a little closer to home.
3. Then Something Happened.
In the normal course of events, a Reservist does initial active duty for recruit training and MOS training. (This can be split up if there are no school slots immediately available after completing recruit training.) When not on active duty, reservists drill one weekend a month with their unit and attend two weeks of active duty for training annually(ATD). This is the pattern for the 6-8 years of a typical reserve contract. If you break the contract (by not attending drill weekends or ATD, failing to maintain standards, etc.), you can be ordered to active duty. I am not certain but I also believe it is possible to request to be called to active duty so you can end your contracted period of service earlier. Given his subsequently less than stellar conduct, he was probably ordered to active duty for some significant infraction.
4. His first UA(AWOL) was the last straw for some CO.
The next assignment page entry the Chief shows us is in May 1975 (750519) when he is run to Unauthorized Absence (UA) status. (Absent Without Leave (AWOL) is entered so that the 30 day minimum clock on that offense is simultaneously started in case the Marine is gone longer than a month.) Two days later, 750521 he is sent to confinement (the Brig) for two months. He returns to duty on 750722. He was UA, according to the entries for one, maybe two days. Under normal circumstances, 2 days UA is not punished by two months in the brig. You get 2 months in the brig (usually along with being reduced in rank and fined) when your enlisted and officer leadership is finally, really, and truly feed up with your nonsense. At this point, he has been back on active duty a little less than a year. Imagine what has been going on to reach this point of exasperation with the private. Interestingly, when he goes UA for six days in September 1975, there is no confinement. He just goes back to duty. He is put in UA status again on 751206 but we don’t have any more entries to see how the offense was handled.
5. He may have “Bad Paper.”
What follows is speculation since his full SRB is not available to examine, but I suspect that he might have already been awaiting an administrative discharge or had been tried by a courts martial.
During the early and mid-1970s, the Marine Corps faced a crisis in the number of poor performing Marines it was having to process for discharge. (It was not the only service experiencing this problem.) This toleration of petty infractions sometimes was the case if the unit was being forced into carrying the Marine on its rolls while awaiting completion of the often considerable time required for the automatic review process by an overburdened military judicial system. This review is required when a bad conduct or dishonorable discharge is ordered as part of the sentence of a courts martial. At times during this period, this process was so long that a Marine would complete the confinement portion of their punishment and return to the unit to await the final administrative process. At that point, how much further punishment could be inflicted on someone who had essentially nothing left to lose? The resulting situation was essentially an uneasy truce between the unit and the Marine awaiting discharge. The unit didn’t unduly harass the Marine if the Marine was more or less conforming to expected minimum standards of performance and behavior. In return, the Marine had three squares a day, a place to sleep and bathe, got some portion of a private’s pay, and could go on liberty if he stayed out of/didn’t cause further trouble.
Later in the 70s, the Marine Corps would develop the “Expeditious Discharge Program,” which streamlined the discharge process and greatly shortened the time required from many months to often less than a month to discharge a poor performing/trouble making Marine. Real criminals, as always, continued to be tried and punished by courts martial.
It is unclear if there was or wasn’t a courts martial in his case because the DD-214 extract lists “Not on File” under Transcript of Courts Martial Trial. Considered in context, “Not on file” cannot be considered the equivalent of “N/A.”
On the other hand, the DD-214 simply states his duty status as “Discharged.” So, if there was no courts martial, he might have gone out the gate with a “General” or “Other Than Honorable” discharge based on his low proficiency and conduct marks.
A General discharge is the very best he could have left with because, as the Chief said, still a private after four years of service says something special - and it isn’t good - about the quality of your service.