I have a question about what I can do about some of the problems I
have been facing due to my criminal background.

First, I'll give you a little bit of background on myself.  In Collin
County, Texas in 1994 I was arrested a charged with two felony counts
of possession of a controlled substance.  One of which is classified
as deferred adjudication.  I served about 9 months in jail during that
time I went through a 90 day boot camp for first time offenders.  I
was released and put on 6 years probation.  When I was released I
moved to Kansas to get away from everyone and everything I knew so I
could start over.  My PO's were always trying to get me an early
release because I did nothing but take up their time, I never caused
any problems I never broke any laws I was an honest, upstanding
citizen and they didn't want to waste their time with someone that was
not going to be a problem.  Unfortunately the state of Texas does not
let go of people that easily, so I had to serve out the 6 years of
probation.  I was officially released in March of 2000.

Texas does not expunge any records and trying to get a pardon from
them is both far too expensive and too time consuming for me (seeing
as how I would have to take off of work and travel down there for
meetings with both the judge and a lawyer).  So I am stuck with this
background.  I did not figure it would be a problem until I was hit by
reality.

Reality check 1.  I was offered a job at South Western Bell as a
network technician, even went through all of the benefits, where I
would work and the whole nine yards.  That is until I asked if my
felony would be a problem, my soon to be boss said yes it would.  He
said it was against company policy to hire felons because of bonding,
all employees that set foot on a customer?s property are bonded and
they would not bond me.

Reality check 2.  Again I was offered another position, this time at a
hospital in Fort Riley working as a systems administrator.  Since this
job was for the Department of Defense and I would be exposed to
various classified medical records I would need to have a security
clearance.  The job process went as far as the last one, going over my
pay and benefits and all, and I asked them about my felony, just like
last time.  And the answer was the same as last time.  They cannot
hire me because I could not get a security clearance.

Since I've been in the IT field for the past 8 years and started off
as a network admin and have slid down to phone support (yeah, the IT
field is really growing), I decided to go back to school and get out
of the IT field before I slide down the ladder any farther and become
a janitor.  So I start looking and found a couple of degree's in the
health care field that looked promising, only to later find out that
most felons cannot get licensed in the health care field, so that
ruled out those.  I then decided to try for Electronics Engineering,
since there has always been interest there.  I met with the head of
the EE department and we talked and again I threw out that big nasty,
my felony, and asked him what he though my chances were of getting a
job in that field.  He said that most companies that hire EE's either
have them get bonded or make them get a security clearance or both
because of the nature of the work, so it would not be very likely that
I would find employment after graduation.  I have found that most
engineering paths, regardless of the discipline, are closed to felons
because we are considered unacceptable risks and the same holds true
with IT related paths beyond the help desk.

So I decided to try something completely different this time.  I tried
enlisting in the military.  I enlisted once when I was 17 and got a
technical discharge because I did not want to ship out to boot camp,
so I knew the procedure.  I contacted a recruiter who was more than
happy to try to help me and I think he tried to get me in but I know
he didn't try all that hard.  I could not enlist in the military
because of my criminal background.  So I started researching.  I
focused on UCMJ and read more of it than any human should ever read. 
It helped a little but in my research I stumbled upon the United
States Code and read through it.  I found a section that I thought
might help (Title 10, SubTitle A, Part II, Chapter 31, Section 504,
first paragraph, second sentence)
-----------------------
Sec. 504. Persons not qualified

    No person who is insane, intoxicated, or a deserter from an armed 
force, or who has been convicted of a felony, may be enlisted in any 
armed force. However, the Secretary concerned may authorize exceptions, 
in meritorious cases, for the enlistment of deserters and persons 
convicted of felonies.
-----------------------
I realize that this might give me what I need, but what Secretary is
this talking about?  And would it even be worth my time to try to
fight this?  I want to serve my country like my male ancestors before
me did, but I don't want to fight to get something I want only to made
to regret it later because of the opposition of the personnel I would
work around.

Is there a chance I can get back into the military and have a
successful military career?

I apologize for the length of this question, but I felt it was
necessary to provide more information about myself and my current
situation than just a brief ?can I get in the military? question.

---

Request for Question Clarification by tutuzdad-ga on 06 Jan 2005 10:45 PST

Can you clarify what you mean by, "...can I get BACK into the military"? 

Have you been in the military before? If so, what branch? 

When were the dates of your prior service? 

How old are you now? 

What branch are you wanting to enlist in this time? 

tutuzdad-ga

---

Clarification of Question by jtjones-ga on 06 Jan 2005 11:28 PST

I was enlisted in the Texas Army National Guard when I was 17, but did
not go to bootcamp and recieved a technical discharge.  Honestly I do
not remember the exact dates but it was around 1991-1992.

I am 31 now.

I want to go into either the National Guard or the Army.

Dear jtjones-ga;

Thank you for allowing me to answer your interesting question. As you
might imagine, this is not a simple issue. Let me provide you with a
number of scenarios and you decide which ones pertain to you and
potentially disqualify you:

Your eligibility code at the time of separation from the military was
recorded on your DD214. Assuming you had no felony convictions, your
ability to reenlist would have been determined by the military?s
current policy concerning which persons (according to their
reenlistment codes) they are willing to ?take back?. This is often
determined by the method of separation you had in the first place.
Regardless of your felony convictions since then, this could have a
serious impact on your eligibility even if you had not been convicted.
In other words, depending on the RE Code on your DD214 because you had
a technical discharge rather than a normal honorable discharge, you
might not have qualified for reenlistment even BEFORE you were
arrested. You can read about the eligibility codes here and compare
them to your own DD214.

MILITARY REENLISTMENT ELIGIBILITY
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/theorderlyroom/l/blcodemenu.htm
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/theorderlyroom/l/blcode3.htm

If you have an RE Code that is not desirable for reenlistment, you
can, in some instances have it changed:

UPGRADING YOUR MILITARY DISCHARGE
http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/generalinfo/a/dischargeupg_5.htm


Now, having said that the General Eligibility policies for all armed
services say in part (showing only the ones I believe relate to you
specifically):

?Moral standards of acceptability for service are designed to
disqualify the following kinds of persons:

(1)b. Those with significant criminal records.

(2)c. Those who have been previously separated from the Military
Services under conditions other than honorable or for the good of the
Service.?

QUALIFICATION STANDARDS FOR ENLISTMENT, APPOINTMENT OR INDUCTION
http://dont.stanford.edu/regulations/1304.26attach1.pdf

If you were separated because of any reason other than completion of
your military obligation and an honorable discharge, you DO NOT
qualify to reenlist.

Finally, in addition to all this, I spoke to a friend of mine who is a
Retention NCO for the Army and he indicated that the Regular Army
would not reenlist prior service personnel after they have been out of
the service more than 14 years unless they had specialized skills for
which there is a desperate need.


As for the Army Reserves or Guard, it appears that you are ineligible
for those also. The qualification requirements that would impact you
are listed below (there are others that are not listed below, that are
probably irrelevant to your situation):

?If you're an Enlisted Soldier applying for the Active Guard Reserve, you must:

? Be [honorably] discharged from your component of the Army, Army
Reserve or Army National Guard
?Be in ranks SPC through SFC
?Be eligible for reenlistment or extension (this, of course, depends
on your RE Code as I mentioned earlier)
?Have not been involuntarily removed from Active Duty
GOARMY.COM
http://www.goarmy.com/reserve/ps/active_guard_reserve.jsp#requirements

If you want information from an absolute authority relative to your
situation specifically, go here and fill out the form. Someone will
contact you and tell you if you are eligible or not.

US MILITARY.COM
http://www.usmilitary.com/scripts/recruit_signup.html


In case you are wondering, according to Navy recruiters, if you have
been out more than 6 years you are not be eligible to re-enlist.
NAVY.COM
http://www.navy.com/forum/thread.jspa?threadID=2648&tstart=150

According to Air Force policy, one of the eligibility requires for
prior service to reenlist is that they much have COMPLETED their first
(initial) military obligation and must have received nothing less than
an HONORABLE discharge.

PRIOR SERVICE ENLISTMENT BONUS
http://www.vt.ang.af.mil/ncodisk/12/i/prior%20service%20enlistment%20bonus.htm


By the way, the term ?Secretary? means SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (or his
UNDER SECRETARY) as he is the authority who makes military policy.
This does not mean that the Secretary of Defense reviews all waiver
requests, rather it indicates that all waiver requests are subject to
review according to the Secretary?s standing policy. Some waivers can
be approved/disapproved by the Recruiting Battalion Commander; other
waivers must be approved/disapproved by Army Personnel Headquarters.
In the case of felony convictions, such a waiver would potentially
have to be approved by the Commanding General MILPERCEN.

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14mar20010800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2002/julqtr/pdf/32cfr571.3.pdf

Even then, a Reserve waiver is not valid to get you into Regular Army.
Each component has it?s own policy and requires its own waivers. So,
for example, you could not get a waiver and get into the Reserves with
the plan to eventually return to active service. A new waiver would
have to be granted for that enlistment.



I hope you find that my research exceeds your expectations. If you
have any questions about my research please post a clarification
request prior to rating the answer. Otherwise I welcome your rating
and your final comments and I look forward to working with you again
in the near future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.

Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga ? Google Answers Researcher



OTHER INFORMATION SOURCES

CRIMINAL/MORAL HISTORY WHICH AFFECTS ENTRY INTO THE ARMY
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/armyjoin/l/blarcriminal.htm



SEARCH STRATEGY


SEARCH ENGINE USED:

Google ://www.google.com


SEARCH TERMS USED:

MILITARY

ARMED FORCES

REGULATIONS

ENLISTMENT

QUALIFICATIONS

ELIGIBILITY

ARMY

RESERVES

GUARD

---

Request for Answer Clarification by jtjones-ga on 06 Jan 2005 15:14 PST

Thank you for your thorough answer, but I feel that a couple of points
were left a little loose.  The first being that the technical
discharge I received is not anything worse than a general discharge,
and as for my RE code I am eligible for reenlistment according to it. 
The battalion commander was kind enough not to give me a less than
honorable discharge or make my RE code disqualify me.  So basically
none of the first part of your answer really applies to my situation
as I have already had a couple of recruiters pull my NGB-22 from Texas
and look it over and they said that it would not pose any problems for
me, other than explaining why I didn?t want to go to boot camp after
promising that I would.

As for being able to receive a waiver, where would I go to be able to
get an actual decision based upon my situation instead of just a
general answer?  The recruiters don?t seem to want to help any further
than they have to, I?m assuming because they are graded upon the
quantity of recruits they get and my situation will take a little more
time than the high school graduate would.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by jtjones-ga on 06 Jan 2005 15:21 PST

Oh and the link that you gave:
http://www.usmilitary.com/scripts/recruit_signup.html

The date of birth drop down, only goes back to 1979, I was born in
1973 so I really don't want to submit it and provide them with false
information.

---

Clarification of Answer by tutuzdad-ga on 06 Jan 2005 16:01 PST

Sorry, I provided you with the wrong link. This is the one that you
need to fill out if you are prior service. The DOB here goes back to
1969. It should result in a an authoritative opinion regarding your
problem.

MILITARY.COM
http://www.usmilitary.com/scripts/enlist_form_prior_service.html

As for where to go, well, like I mentioned, in this DOD document it is
stated that felonly convictions are waived at the discretion of the
Commanding General, MILPERCEN.

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14mar20010800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2002/julqtr/pdf/32cfr571.3.pdf

Now that's not to say that you won't have any positive results from
getting someone in a position of authority to help you influence the
Commaning General to waive your convictions. In fact, you may have
some success with that approach. If the information from MILITARY.COM
comes back indicating that you are not eligible, I recommend you
contact a high ranking Judge, your State Representative or Senator to
see if they would be willing assist "a voting constituent who is
wanting to proudly serve his country and do his duty" (of course, you
can word it however you want, but I'm sure you get my drift).

I salute your eagerness to serve. Good luck!!! Stay safe!!! 

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga (proud fellow vet)

---

Clarification of Answer by tutuzdad-ga on 06 Jan 2005 17:51 PST

With regard to your question about THE SECRETARY, a fellow researcher
has pointed out that the chain of command begins at the top with the
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE down to the SECRETARY OF THE ARMY. You might be
interested to know that the Secretary of Defense (more specifically
the Assistant Secretary of Defense) reviews, coordinates, approves,
and issues modifications to readiness policies and the Secretary of
the Army ensures conformance and establishs procedures to grant
waivers as seen in this document:

Department of Defense
DIRECTIVE NUMBER 1304.26
http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/text/d130426p.txt

So, thought the Assistant Secretary fo Defense is ultimatly
responsible in the chaine of command, in Title 10, SubTitle A, Part
II, Chapter 31, Section 504 where the regulation refers to "the
Secretary concerned" it is probably referring to the Secretaries of
the various Military Departments (Secretary of the Army, Secretary of
the Navy., etc.). However, I must remind you that the Secretary of the
Army "himself" does not approve the waivers, rather his designee does.
As indicated in the DoD document I showed you though and the one show
below, this designee is the Commanding General of the U.S.
Army Military Personnel Center (MILPERCEN).

TITLE 32--NATIONAL DEFENSE
 
CHAPTER V--DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
 
PART 571--RECRUITING AND ENLISTMENTS--Table of Contents
 
Sec. 571.3  Waivable enlistment criteria including civil offenses.

PARAGRAPH 5, item (v)

"(v) Adult felonies........................  CG, MILPERCEN"

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14mar20010800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2002/julqtr/32cfr571.3.htm

I hope this clears that issue up.

regards;
tutuzdad-ga

---

Clarification of Answer by tutuzdad-ga on 06 Jan 2005 17:57 PST

...and, I might add (if we want to get REALLY technical) The Commander
of the U.S. Army Enlistment Eligibility Activity (USAEEA) may act on
behalf of the Commanding General the U.S. Army Military Personnel
Center (MILPERCEN) to process, approve and disapprove waivers for
enlistment.

TITLE 32, CHAPTER V, PART 571, Sec. 571.3(a)(2)
(same document as above)

That was a great answer, I am impressed.  Thank you for the research
and the assistance.

Related question:

Subject: felony conviction career restrictions 
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=450410