From Wikipedia: In 1958, while he was an airman first class, his commanding officer recommended him for an early honorable discharge. “In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy,” chief of information services Colonel William S. Evans wrote to the Eglin personnel office. “Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members.”
Honorable and dishonorable are official designations for the US military, and a dishonorable discharge is tantamount to a criminal conviction for many professional purposes and veterans benefits.
My brother was a huge fuckup in the Marines, but they waited until he sprained his knee and then gave him a medical discharge, which doesn’t carry the same stigma as a dishonorable.
Dunno, dishonoring the US military seems like a badge of honor
Honestly, you gotta be a real piece of shit to get a DD normally, think rape or murder… Well, enough rape and murder they don’t cover it up.
That or smoke some weed.
Either way, “less than honorable” is the ‘easiest’ way to get rid of a complete fuck up.
The real monsters have an honorable though.
Drug use on its own usually doesn’t result in a court martial, which means it normally isn’t a DD.
Drug use would be a less severe separation like an OTH or general discharge.
So either you’re a bad, bad person or a totally normal person who did nothing wrong. Sounds like a useless label, then. Like a felony.
The commander must have liked HST at least a little bit to have gone through the trouble of an administrative discharge, but not even downgrade from “honorable” to “general”.
Usually if somebody is a minor pain, everybody just waits it out until their contract ends and denies them the ability to sign a new one. If they are pain enough to discharge early through a pure admin discharge (as opposed to medical), there is usually enough hard feeling for a downgrade.