The various discharge review boards provide a mechanism to restore entitlement to veterans benefits in the form of a discharge upgrade. (Photo: Military Times)
You have spent countless years of your life serving your country with honor and distinction, only to find yourself facing a discharge less than fully honorable due to misconduct. Your retirement could be lost, the education benefits you earned are now gone and your entitlement to other Department of Veterans Affairs benefits has been stripped away as well.
The various discharge review boards provide a mechanism to restore your entitlement to those veterans benefits in the form of a discharge upgrade. While the name of the board seems self-explanatory and the process appears straight-forward, it can be very complicated for some.
The discharge review boards exist for all branches of the military and have the power to correct inequities or improprieties in military service records. This can mean upgrading a discharge from other than honorable to general under honorable conditions and can result in the restoration of some veterans’ benefits administered by the VA. An upgrade from general to honorable would restore a service member’s access to Post 9/11 GI Bill education benefits and allow the service member to take advantage of educational opportunities following service while avoiding the ever-inflating cost of an education.
Besides upgrading a military discharge classification, the boards possess the power to change a service member’s reentry code, correct the narrative reason for separation, and even change the separation authority. This could result in a service member becoming eligible to reenlist in the military or avoiding having to explain why their DD-214 lists things like “drug abuse” or “serious misconduct” under the narrative for separation.
A service member has the right to submit a request to the discharge review board so long as the application is made within 15-years from the date of his or her separation from service. The service member is required to complete a DD-Form 293 and it is highly recommended that a comprehensive petition be submitted along with the completed form in order to increase the chances of the board granting relief.
Read more at Militarytimes.com
Author: Military Times
Published with permission. MilitaryTimes.com is a part of the Sightline Media Group, formerly known as the Army Times Publishing Company, which first published Army Times in 1940. Throughout its history, the company has a strong heritage and tradition of meeting the highest standards of independent journalism and has expanded with publications serving all branches of the U.S. military, the global defense community, the U.S. federal government, and several special interest, defense-oriented industry sectors.