One of you exceedingly salty admin types with a sh*thoarder complex needs to come up with an equally old copy of SECNAVINST 1620.6 (Separation of Naval Officers). This instruction was revised in 83 and again in 99. We need to see the instruction that was operative in 78 when he got his honorable discharge.
From what I can tell from the latest iteration of the instruction, an officer being separated involuntary MUST BE NOTIFIED of the pending action. Translated from NavSpeak: Kerry got a letter from either NRPC or BUPERS telling him that he was to be separated (discharged or dropped from the rolls), when it was to happen, and why.
The subject instruction is referenced in Navy Military Personnel Manual (nee BUPERSMAN in Kerry's time) as the governing policy document. See Kerry's NAVPERS 1926/2 discharging him from the USNR; it's cited as reference (c).
Somebody needs to respond to this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1243687/posts?page=36#36
Ok....this old sailor remembers a few things now:
The two statutes(10 USC 1162 and 1163) concerned Revocation of Officers Commissions without consent of the officer. Both statutes were repealed in 1994 and several variants of the original statute have been in effect since then. The most current version is here:
10 USC 1162 was replaced with this statute:
____________________________________________________________
§ 12683. Reserve officers: limitation on involuntary separation
Release date: 2004-03-18
(a) An officer of a reserve component who has at least five years of service as a commissioned officer may not be separated from that component without his consent except—
(1) under an approved recommendation of a board of officers convened by an authority designated by the Secretary concerned; or
(2) by the approved sentence of a court-martial.
(b) Subsection (a) does not apply to any of the following:
(1) A separation under section 12684, 14901, or 14907 of this title.
(2) A dismissal under section 1161 (a) of this title.
(3) A transfer under section 12213, 12214, 14514, or 14515 of this title.
(4) A separation of an officer who is in an inactive status in the Standby Reserve and who is not qualified for transfer to the Retired Reserve or is qualified for transfer to the Retired Reserve and does not apply for such a transfer.
if goat locker reads this please post an image/link to this thread that is kerry's Honorable Discharge, if not available, please post an image of whatever you have that specifically says that he received an Honorable Discharge, thanks...rto