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Everyone makes bad decisions...right?
- Thread starter thomallama
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I have a hard time believing that you can be discharged from the Navy because of a tattoo. It's going to be tough to get an answer to that question on here, but I would call a medical school you're not thinking of applying to and ask anonymously to see where they stand.
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Generally if you have current credibility as a med school applicant (stats, letters, etc), things you did in your teens don't carry a lot of weight. But you want to be ready to talk about it. A military discharge, for any reason, definitely needs to be explained: it's a red flag any way you look at it.
Figure out how you want to tell the story to the mature professionals who will review your med school app & who will hopefully interview you. You're not really going to get away with saying "trust me it was bad" because that leaves too much to the imagination (smurf dressed as a nazi fellating an obviously prepubescent hamster?) - categorize it as sexual or violent or racial or whatever it was - and have insightful and substantiated things to say about why you did it and what caused you to change your views.
There are always places to describe academic and legal anomalies on med school apps. The personal statement is not a good place to bring up your failings, other than to develop a narrative of youthful indiscretions leading to maturity.
Best of luck to you.
Figure out how you want to tell the story to the mature professionals who will review your med school app & who will hopefully interview you. You're not really going to get away with saying "trust me it was bad" because that leaves too much to the imagination (smurf dressed as a nazi fellating an obviously prepubescent hamster?) - categorize it as sexual or violent or racial or whatever it was - and have insightful and substantiated things to say about why you did it and what caused you to change your views.
There are always places to describe academic and legal anomalies on med school apps. The personal statement is not a good place to bring up your failings, other than to develop a narrative of youthful indiscretions leading to maturity.
Best of luck to you.
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An ELS separtion does not require you to you check the AMCAS button for "other than honorable". It is considered a neutral matter, and shouldn't be an issue.
I haven't checked to see exactly AMCAS words the question, but if what you wrote is accurate you are fine checking no. ELS is a very specific category used when something goes wrong during your first few months.
However, you don't need to tell us but you need to realize that somewhere out there someone knows what really happened. You can get discharged for getting an inappropriate tattoo, but you claim to have had when you did your entrance physical. If it cleared the physical it wouldn't have gotten you discharged. Likewise, RE-4 means you were bared from ever serving again, including the Reserves. All I can tell you is no matter what you did, you will get caught trying to fudge about it.
Either way, good luck and I'm glad you have been able to get your life back on track.
I haven't checked to see exactly AMCAS words the question, but if what you wrote is accurate you are fine checking no. ELS is a very specific category used when something goes wrong during your first few months.
However, you don't need to tell us but you need to realize that somewhere out there someone knows what really happened. You can get discharged for getting an inappropriate tattoo, but you claim to have had when you did your entrance physical. If it cleared the physical it wouldn't have gotten you discharged. Likewise, RE-4 means you were bared from ever serving again, including the Reserves. All I can tell you is no matter what you did, you will get caught trying to fudge about it.
Either way, good luck and I'm glad you have been able to get your life back on track.
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I was under the impression if you do not finish boot-camp, you were never in the service, and therefore were not discharged. Personally I would call your local recruiter, and see if they could answer this for you. You may not even have to disclose this.
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If they issued a ELS then he was discharged, and was in the military. The question is can you call it honorable when the military considers it neither honorable or dishonorable.
My gut says I'll classify it is an honorable discharge from the standpoint of the application. The likelihood of an adcom that knows or cares the difference is small. They are worried about a "less-than-honorable" discharge, which is what the military issues when you f-up and get kicked out. Not what happens to a kid that doesn't cut it during basic (sorry OP, not sure how else to word it).
I'm wondering how you got a tattoo two years before you enlisted and then get discharged due to the tattoo once you were in Basic. When I went through MEPS there wasn't a single inch of my body that wasn't visible at some point during the processing other than the top of my head. Being stripped to underwear for the duck walk and hemorrhoid/hernia check pretty much covers all skin being visible.
Iit all sounds hinky to me, and hinky on a med school app is a bad thing. If you have an AdCom member who knows anything about the military, it's going to sound hinky to them, as well.
Iit all sounds hinky to me, and hinky on a med school app is a bad thing. If you have an AdCom member who knows anything about the military, it's going to sound hinky to them, as well.
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Come on. Spill it. What was the tattoo?
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scars, too? I can see (maybe) an offensive tattoo presenting a problem, but scars? tattoos = personal choice, scars = accidents, right?
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Thank you, I was about to ask the same....
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One must be careful of the burning hot clothes hangers. They are pretty aggressive in their natural habitat.
Scarification is becoming more popular. There's a random guy on my FB feed that recently got a pentagram scar done on his calf. Basically they cut out the initial shape, then rub in a numbing gel and cut even deeper so it's sure to scar. Do some searches for 'scarification' and you can find all sorts of info on it.
On to the OPs question, you do *not* have an honorable discharge as defined on the AMCAS. I was looking at an application for a university job and they broke it down as follows:
A separation from service under honorable conditions is established by any of the following character of service entries on the military documents used to verify military service:
Honorable
General (Under Honorable Conditions)
General
A separation from service under honorable conditions is not established by any of the following character of service entries on the military documents used to verify military service:
Bad Conduct
Dishonorable
Uncharacterized
Under Other Than Honorable Conditions
Undesirable
Entry Level Separation
So, as you can see, ELS is not considered to be a separation under honorable conditions.
As for what the tat was, I'm going to guess swastika, based on your reticence to say it and the youthful mistake comments. I know people (well, one guy) who have them because they were raised in that environment and regret them, as well. Hard to hold against him when it was the only life he knew when he got it done and considering his views about it now. He only keeps it to remind himself of the life he left behind.
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Swastica or similar was my guess as well...
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Or a rainbow tattoo.
If this guy had a Swastika, has changed, and has to explain it, I feel bad for him. He's going to have a hard time getting into medical school.
Rainbow would only be (well, have been) a problem if you said "yes, that means I'm gay". Under DADT they couldn't even have asked the question in the first place.
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That was intended as a joke. Swastika it seems to be. The OP has not returned.
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I was pretty stupid as a young man too, so I can relate to making poor choices. It sounds like you've outgrown such things, which is something that benefits you more than anyone else. It will be a hard road to get that type of transgression being overlooked by ADCOMS, but I encourage you to still try. Good luck.
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OP,
As a Navy vet I can tell you that an ELS is not an honorable discharge and it's not dishonorable. The description of the discharge points to the fact that the commanding officer did not have sufficient time to review and assess the recruit.
You have stumbled into a unique area and I would recommend not contacting the schools. There is no point disclosing something to a school if its not an accurate protrayal of what AMCAS wants and does not need disclosing. You do not want an unecessary disclosure if you can avoid one. I would contact AMCAS to discuss this with a supervisor and I would also contact MILSPERMAN command at the below contact information. Between these two you should be able to get a better handle on how this should be noted on the AMCAS app.
NAVY PERSONNEL COMMAND
5720 Integrity Drive
Millington TN 38055-0000
Good luck to you,
Post Script:
an application for a University Job does not necessarily equal the same way that AMCAS or the AAMC would classify an ELS - best to clarify with AAMC to be sure
and on a personal note, is 'scarification' acuatually a word? it sounds absolutely horrid
As a Navy vet I can tell you that an ELS is not an honorable discharge and it's not dishonorable. The description of the discharge points to the fact that the commanding officer did not have sufficient time to review and assess the recruit.
You have stumbled into a unique area and I would recommend not contacting the schools. There is no point disclosing something to a school if its not an accurate protrayal of what AMCAS wants and does not need disclosing. You do not want an unecessary disclosure if you can avoid one. I would contact AMCAS to discuss this with a supervisor and I would also contact MILSPERMAN command at the below contact information. Between these two you should be able to get a better handle on how this should be noted on the AMCAS app.
NAVY PERSONNEL COMMAND
5720 Integrity Drive
Millington TN 38055-0000
Good luck to you,
Post Script:
an application for a University Job does not necessarily equal the same way that AMCAS or the AAMC would classify an ELS - best to clarify with AAMC to be sure
and on a personal note, is 'scarification' acuatually a word? it sounds absolutely horrid
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bored at work, here is some more data that might be useful
RE-4 - Individuals separated from last period of service with a nonwaiverable disqualification (refer to AR 601-280). Ineligible for enlistment except as provided for in paragraphs 2-7c and 2-7d. (See waiverable moral and administrative disqualifications.) Disqualilication is nonwaivable.
Review the MILPERSMAN at this below site and look for section 1910 of the manual as this describes in great detail the levels of discharge and their classifications, this may answer your question for you without having to call anyone
http://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-npc/reference/milpersman/1000/1900Separation/Pages/default.aspx
*more precisely section 1910-308 to provide more detail on ELS
http://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-n...an/1000/1900Separation/Documents/1910-308.pdf
*please note that these links are public domain and can be shared with all personnel
RE-4 - Individuals separated from last period of service with a nonwaiverable disqualification (refer to AR 601-280). Ineligible for enlistment except as provided for in paragraphs 2-7c and 2-7d. (See waiverable moral and administrative disqualifications.) Disqualilication is nonwaivable.
Review the MILPERSMAN at this below site and look for section 1910 of the manual as this describes in great detail the levels of discharge and their classifications, this may answer your question for you without having to call anyone
http://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-npc/reference/milpersman/1000/1900Separation/Pages/default.aspx
*more precisely section 1910-308 to provide more detail on ELS
http://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-n...an/1000/1900Separation/Documents/1910-308.pdf
*please note that these links are public domain and can be shared with all personnel
It is very possible they would classify them differently, but my gut says that the way one state institution qualifies a civil service position (which that job is, you have to take the civil service test as part of the hiring process) is very likely the same way another government scholastic entity would. But definitely check with AMCAS to be sure.
And yes, scarification is a real word. It passes spell check and is the descriptive word that the body modification industry uses to describe the process. And I agree, it sounds horrid >.<
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You know what? Just say you couldn't hack basic/adjust to the military lifestyle. There's no shame in that, you won't have to put down a discharge other than the separation you received (ie general discharge, this could bite you in the ass later), and you won't have to explain your ex-tattoo.
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I disagree with this. They might question you about not adjusting to military life, if you can't hack it there why would you hack it in med shool. Plus you'd be flat out lying and if you get caught in that it's no bueno.
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No, there is a huge difference and anyone with any experience around military people would know this. There are certain personalities which should not go into the military, and this is discovered in basic.
My son who is deployed in Afghanistan right now, has often informed me that I was right to never go into the military because I would have been kicked out of basic.
Oh please, telling them he couldn't keep up on runs or do enough push-ups won't translate into "can't hack med school".
I'm a military doc. Lots of people can't hack basic or become good troops, but could make great docs/engineers/whatevers. That's one issue we've had with direct-entries: they're already the trade that's needed (physicians in this case) and our military recruited them, but many of them just don't mesh well with military life. It has nothing to do with them not being good physicians.
