Did you know that candidates separated from the Marine Corps are never given a DD 214 or any other kind of discharge papers? According to my disenrollment letter:
You are separated as a Officer Candidate Disenrollment, Code JFW1. Your description of service is “entry level separation.” Members in this status do not receive a discharge certificate or characterization of service at separation.
So things are at a stand-still until I receive official orders to TDRL. It turns out because I don’t have (and won’t be getting) a DD 214, nobody is able to register me. All they can tell me at the national VA headquarters and at the local level here in Boston, is that cases like mine are handled at a regional level. Try calling your regional VA office and the call will go straight to the national headquarters.
A Marine Officer who graduated OCS in 1967 found my site and offered some excellent advice to getting things worked out. He recommended I get in touch with my local Disabled American Veterans. Let’s hope they will be able to assist me with the VA.
Comments
3 responses to “At a stand-still with registering with the VA”
Hey buddy. Yeah, for whatever reason, when a Marine OCS candidate doesn’t complete training, they were never technically in the service. It was a conditional enlistment you signed when you enrolled in OCS, conditional on graduating and then accepting a condition.
I’m sure they will square it up for you. They better!
Right, I was never commissioned, but when we applied to OCS we enlisted into the USMCR, which technically, I have been in since we went to OCS.
It is as a Private in the USMCR that I was found unfit for duty and received a disability rating from. If the Marines can find me unfit for duty and give me a rating, how come the VA can’t register me without a DD 214? It doesn’t make sense.
Again, I’m just a rare case that nobody knows what to do with.
Believe me Chris, I will be squared away eventually.
Been there, done that. I’m in your same situation. Medical discharge (honorable). If you contact the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, they will send you a letter stating your rank (O-1) and an honorable discharge along with your serial number and the dates that you served. But, a DD-214? I might as well spend my time trying to find Waldo. Meaning, good luck with that. But, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs is probably your only link to military service. Sucks, I know.