Sorry, needed to make it easier to read!
32 C.F.R. § 730.51 (1969). The Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. § 801 et seq., and the Manual for Courts-Martial, United States, 1969 ("MCM"). The dishonorable and bad conduct discharge are expressly punitive, and carry with them a federal conviction, stigma, injury to person, and many losses including employment opportunities, as well loss of entitlement to federal and state veteran benefits.
United States v. Wheeler, 17 U.S.C.M.A. 274; 38 C.M.R. 274 (1967); Thus, while a judge or jury, as the case may be, normally imposes only a sentence to confinement or fine, military tribunals go beyond these ordinary punishments and, for example, are permitted also to reduce an individual to the lowest enlisted grade, exact forfeitures from him over a period of time, reprimand him, or direct his punitive separation from the service.
The severity of these penalties, unknown to civil life as they are, cannot be denied. In the present days of military economy, to deprive a noncommissioned officer of his rank alone is, in essence, to effect financial retribution of the immense sum he would otherwise have accrued during the years it may take him to regain his former position. In like manner, the ordering of a punitive discharge so characterizes an individual that his whole future is utterly destroyed. He is marked far beyond the civilian felon, hampered as he may be by the sneering term "ex-con," for, justifiedly or not, the punitive discharge so dishonors and disgraces an accused that he finds employment virtually impossible; is subjected to many legal deprivations; and is regarded with horror by his fellow citizens.
Truly, it has come to be the modern equivalent of the ancient practice of branding felons, and the stain it leaves is as ineradicable. And, in the case of a soldier with extended service, the discharge can be even more severe, for, as the Chief Judge wisely noted in United States v Prow, 13 USCMA 63, 32 CMR 63, at page 64, "an executed punitive discharge terminates military status as completely as an executed death penalty ends mortal life."
Nope, never have tried it, nor have any plans to
