Army National Guard AWOL question

[ahivebeenburgle]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? West Virginia

Hi, i have a slightly complicated predicament here.

I have been AWOL from the NG since around Sept. of last year. Heres the story;

Our unit was ramping up training in preparation for deployment the first of 2009, so we did the drug test ritual in august. I know i pissed hot for marijuana, and assumed i was dishonorably discharged since pre-deployment they typically have a zero tolerance policy. ( i say "assumed" because i never heard ANYTHING, not from my CO, or master sergent, or from my squad NCO or anybody from the unit. i only had experiences of others to go off of.)

*At this point, i know now the proper thing to do would have been to contact one of them after a month or so without hearing anything, but i was understandably slightly ashamed.

So in August 2009 i had a letter forwarded to my new address. I was surprised to see that it was from the rear detachment of my unit, and it was postmarked April 2009. When i opened it, it was a drill schedule. Thats it. No discharge papers, nothing of the sort.

I am now left with no other theories than instead of discharging me, they transfered me to rear det. (i was unfit for deployment maybe because of the pot?) Anyways, it is now December 2009, and ive cleaned up for a few months and tried to straighten my civilian life out.

So my question is; What are the odds that i can come back from this? i mean, ive missed over a years worth of drills. I know that they typically punish you after missing 2 or 3, but i would be willing to take rank/pay cuts, so long as im able to finish my contract.

The obvious answer is to contact the unit, but i guess im just trying to find out if anything like this has happened to anyone else, or what my chances are of being able to stay in. Most of the time you hear of people going awol for a week or a month, at most 6 months, but ive never heard of a year or more.

I also know that its based on why you went awol and your intention to shirk duties/responsibilities. But seeing as that wasn't my intent at all (i just thought i was discharged) this seems like murky water to me.

Thanks in advance for any advice/info anyone is able to provide.

(edit) if it makes any difference, up until the drug test i was a good soldier with a clean record and near perfect test scores.

 

[questionia]

More information needed

There are a lot of variables which factor in here. It's not a given that you would have been discharged for one bad drug test. Many times junior enlisted soldiers are given a second chance. Also, do you actually know you failed the urinalysis? If your unit deployed and you were included in the deployment you would have received some notice, including follow ups when you failed to report. You may have been transferred not to the rear det but to the Individual Ready Reserve for unsatisfactory participation. You may also have been cut loose due to the failed UA. Your best bet is to contact the unit. If you can't do that request your DD214 from the VA and that should provide some insight.

 

[redleg17]

The Reserve and Guard are shying away from just discharging "unsatisfactory participants"....instead, focus is supposed to be on recovering those soldiers and getting them back into their units. If that fails, they are transferring them to the IRR, which is being used as a deployment asset.... 1000+ are getting called up every year.

Your best bet is to contact the full-time staff person at your unit, since that's the person that would have submitted any paperwork, you're most likely to get the answer you need from him/her.

If you were not attending drill, the unit should have been sending you a certified letter after every missed duty period that detailed every missed duty period (4 per regular drill) and all the legal mumbo-jumbo. If you were discharged or transferred to the IRR, your command was also supposed to send you a copy of the orders**************

 

[ahivebeenburgle]

Thank you both for your responses. this brings up a new question though, assuming i was transferred to the IRR, what are my chances of being able to rejoin a guard unit, or reenlist for that matter? i have basically no experience with the IRR or how they operate.