DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

BOARD FOR CORRECTION OF MILITARY RECORDS 

Application for the Correction of 
the Coast Guard Record of: 
 
                                                                                BCMR Docket No. 2009-252 
 
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  

FINAL DECISION 

This is a proceeding under the provisions of section 1552 of title 10 and section 425 of 
title 14 of the United States Code.  The Chair docketed the case after receiving the applicant’s 
completed application on September 12, 2009. 

 
This final decision, dated July 8, 2010, is approved and signed by the three duly appoint-

 

 
 

 

 

ed members who were designated to serve as the Board in this case. 
 

APPLICANT’S REQUEST AND ALLEGATIONS 

The applicant asked the Board to upgrade his character of discharge and narrative reason 
for  discharge.    His  DD  214  shows  that  on  March  12,  2004,  he  received  a  general  discharge 
“under honorable conditions” due to “Fraudulent Entry into Military Service, Drug Abuse,” with 
a  JDT  separation  code  and  an  RE-4  reenlistment  code  (ineligible  to  reenlist).    The  applicant 
requested an honorable discharge. 

 
The  applicant  was  discharged  because,  upon  his  arrival  at  boot  camp,  his  urine  tested 
positive for cocaine.  He stated that he cannot explain the test results but “can absolutely state 
under oath that I have never had anything to do at all with controlled substances in my entire 
life.”  He alleged that he did not intentionally ingest any controlled substance, did not know that 
it was in his system, and so did not fraudulently enlist in the Coast Guard or “conceal or misrep-
resent anything.”  He further alleged that he is “a victim of a terrible wrong-doing by someone 
who probably had no idea of the hardship, embarrassment, difficulty and consequences of the 
action they took.”   

 
In support of his request, the applicant submitted a letter from his father, who stated that 
his son was “probably a victim of a terribly unfortunate prank performed by someone at a social 
event held for [the applicant] prior to his departure for basic training.”  He also submitted docu-
ments showing that since his discharge the applicant has graduated from college and is now a 
high school history teacher and a basketball and swim coach.  He submitted letters of reference 
from prior supervisors and professors praising his character, reliability, integrity, and responsibil-

ity.  In addition, he submitted documents from the police departments of his university and home 
town indicating that they do not have any criminal records in the applicant’s name. 

 

 

SUMMARY OF THE RECORD 

On February 24, 2004, the day before his 27th birthday, the applicant enlisted in the Coast 
Guard Reserve at a recruiting office in xxxxxxxxxxxx.  Prior to his enlistment, he worked on his 
father’s ranch.  On page 2 of his Record of Military Processing, after initialing the right-hand 
block for “No”  in response to the first thirteen  questions on page 2, he initialed the  left-hand 
block for “Yes” in response to the final question on the page, which appears as follows: 

 
DRUG USE AND ABUSE  (If “Yes,” explain in Section VI, “Remarks.”) 
Have you ever tried, used, sold, supplied or possessed any narcotic (to include heroin or 
cocaine), depressant (to include Quaaludes), stimulant, hallucinogen (to include LSD or 
PCP), or cannabis (to include marijuana or hashish), or any mind-altering substance (to 
include glue or paint), or anabolic steroid, except as prescribed by a licensed physician? 
 
There is no explanation for the applicant’s “Yes” response in Section VI on page 4 of the 
form.  At the recruiting office, the applicant also signed a separate form acknowledging that he 
would  be  tested  by  urinalysis  upon  arrival  at  the  training  center  and  that  if  his  urine  tested 
positive for illegal drugs, he would be subject to a general discharge.  He certified by his signa-
ture that he was “drug-free and ready for recruit training.”  In addition, he acknowledged having 
been  advised that if his  enlistment documents were  not accurate, he could receive  a less than 
honorable discharge for fraudulent enlistment. 

 
The applicant was immediately sent to the training center in Cape May, New Jersey.  On 
February 25, 2004, the  new recruits underwent  a urinalysis.   The urinalysis report sent to the 
training center on March 4, 2004, shows by his social security number that the applicant’s urine 
tested positive for cocaine use at a level of 127 micrograms per milliliter. 

 
On March 12, 2004, the applicant was discharged due to “Fraudulent Entry into Military 

Service, Drug Abuse,” with a JDT separation code and an RE-4 reenlistment code. 
 
On  February  25,  2009,  the  Vice  Commandant  disapproved  the  recommendation  of  the 
 
Discharge Review Board (DRB), which had voted four to one to upgrade the  applicant’s dis-
charge to honorable, his narrative reason for discharge to “Miscellaneous/General Reasons,” and 
his reenlistment code to RE-1 (eligible to reenlist).  The DRB had found that the applicant’s dis-
charge was both equitable and proper but, based upon the documents he submitted, recommend-
ed that his discharge be upgrade because “he presents a convincing argument for not knowingly 
ingesting drugs.”  The DRB noted that had the applicant tested positive for drug use after boot 
camp, he “would have had the opportunity to rebut the finding of a drug incident and evaluation 
testing could have been an option.” 
 

VIEWS OF THE COAST GUARD 

 
 
On January 12, 2010, the Judge Advocate General (JAG) of the Coast Guard submitted 
an advisory opinion in which he recommended that the Board deny the applicant’s requests.  In 

so doing, he adopted the findings and analysis of the case provided in a memorandum prepared 
by the Personnel Service Center (PSC). 
 
 
The PSC noted the proceedings of the DRB and recommended that the Board uphold the 
decision of the Commandant.  The PSC submitted a copy of an email from the Special Assistant 
to  the  Vice  Commandant,  who  stated  the  following  regarding  the  Vice  Commandant’s  disap-
proval of the DRB’s recommendation: 
 

[The  applicant’s]  record  included  a  standard  military  processing  form  that  [he]  completed  at 
recruitment in which he initialed under “yes” in response to the question about drug use and abuse.  
[The applicant] offered no explanation of his affirmative response as required in the remarks sec-
tion of the form and there was no indication that the recruiter identified the admission/ omission.  
The DRB did not address this matter with the applicant, but they also did not overlook it.  The 
DRB was persuaded that [the applicant] was truthful in his relief request and the DRB presumed 
that [he] answered the drug question at its broadest definition—which includes glue and paint in 
addition to drugs. 
 
The DRB appeared to have acted based on these presumptions which made [the applicant’s] state-
ment in his letter to the DRB assuring that he never had anything to do with controlled substances 
consistent  with  his  affirmative  response  to  the  drug  use  and  abuse  question  …  presuming  he 
merely misused glue or paint. 
 
The Vice Commandant was not convinced by the narrow reading required to justify the affirma-
tive response to drug use or abuse in the accession paperwork and [the applicant’s] later statement 
claiming no use of controlled substances.  Accordingly, she disapproved the board recommenda-
tion and left the record as is. 

APPLICANT’S RESPONSE TO THE VIEWS OF THE COAST GUARD 

 

 

On  January  11,  2010,  the  Board  received  the  applicant’s  response  to  the  views  of  the 
Coast Guard.  The applicant repeated his allegation that he has “never knowingly or intentionally 
ingested any illegal substance.  The collective record of my life before and after the Coast Guard 
experience confirms that, and it [is] based upon that record that I request the Board to approve 
my request.”  The applicant argued that if the Board upgrades his discharge but leaves the RE-4 
code unchanged, it would “allow me to regain some measure of personal dignity in keeping with 
the record of my entire life, lessen the damage done to me by the perpetrator of the crime, and 
assure the Coast Guard that I will not re-apply for admission.” 

 
The applicant alleged that his initials on the Record of Military Processing form indicat-
ing that he had abused drugs was a mistake because he has not abused any illegal drug or any 
other substance, such as glue or paint.  The applicant submitted a copy of another form he com-
pleted on March 7, 2003, pursuant to his enlistment.  On this form, a “Questionnaire for National 
Security Positions,” in response to an inquiry about whether he had ever been charged with or 
convicted  of  an  offense  related  to  drugs  or  alcohol,  he  admitted  that  he  had  been  ticketed  in 
March 2000 for selling alcohol to a minor.  On the same form, he denied any use of illegal drugs 
within the prior seven years. 
 

APPLICABLE REGULATIONS 

 

Article 20.C.2.a.6.b. of the Coast Guard Personnel Manual in effect in 2004 states that 

new recruits must undergo urinalysis within three days of arriving at the training center. 

 
Article  12.B.18.  of  the  manual  governs  the  administrative  separation  of  members  for 
misconduct.    Article  12.B.18.a.  states  that  the  Commander  of  the  Personnel  Command  may 
direct the discharge of a member  for misconduct with an other than honorable,  general under 
honorable conditions, or honorable discharge “as warranted by the particular circumstances of a 
given case.”   

 
Article 12.B.18.b.2. states that a member may be discharged for fraudulent enlistment for 
“[p]rocuring a fraudulent enlistment, induction, or period of active service through any deliberate 
material misrepresentation, omission, or concealment which, if known at the time, might have 
resulted  in  rejection.  …  Commanding  Officer,  Training  Center  Cape  May,  is  delegated  final 
discharge  authority  under  this  Article  in  these  specific  cases  for  members  assigned  to  recruit 
training or prior service training program:  a. Deliberately concealed criminal records or other 
information necessary to effect enlistment. …” 

 
Article  12.B.20.b.1.  of  the  Personnel  Manual  in  effect  today  states  that  “Commanding 
Officer, Training Center Cape May, when compelling circumstances exist, has the authority to 
award an uncharacterized discharge for service during boot camp in cases involving drug inci-
dents.”  This provision did not exist in 2004.  
 
 
Under the SPD Handbook, a member involuntarily discharged for procuring “fraudulent 
enlistment, induction or period of military service through deliberate, material misrepresentation, 
omission or concealment of drug use/abuse” may  be discharged under  Article 12.B.18. of the 
Personnel  Manual  with  a  JDT  separation  code,  an  RE-4  reenlistment  code,  and  “Fraudulent 
Entry into Military Service, Drug Abuse” as the narrative reason for discharge.  

FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS 

 

The Board makes the following findings and conclusions on the basis of the applicant’s 

 
 
submissions, the Coast Guard’s submissions, and applicable law: 
 

1. 

The Board has jurisdiction concerning this matter pursuant to 10 U.S.C. § 1552.  
Under 10  U.S.C. § 1552(b) and 33 C.F.R. § 52.22, an application to the Board must be  filed 
within  three  years  after  the  applicant  discovers,  or  reasonably  should  have  discovered,  the 
alleged  error  or  injustice.    Although  the  applicant  in  this  case  filed  his  application  more  than 
three years after his discharge, he filed it within three years of the decision of the DRB, which 
has a fifteen-year statute of limitations.  Therefore, under Ortiz v. Secretary of Defense, 41 F.3d 
738, 743 (D.C. Cir. 1994), the application is considered timely. 

The applicant alleged that his general discharge for fraudulent enlistment due to 
drug abuse was erroneous and unjust.  The Board begins its analysis in every case by “presuming 

 
2.  

administratively regularity on the part of Coast Guard and other Government officials.”1  The 
applicant bears the burden of proving the existence of an error or injustice by a preponderance of 
the evidence.2  Absent evidence to the contrary, the Board presumes that Coast Guard officials 
and other Government employees have carried out their duties “correctly, lawfully, and in good 
faith.”3  
 
3. 

The  record  shows  that  about  a  year  before  his  enlistment,  the  applicant  denied 
having used an illegal drug during the prior seven years.  On the day he enlisted, February 24, 
2004, the applicant admitted to having used illegal drugs at some time in the past on his Record 
of Military Processing, but he also certified on another form that he was “drug-free and ready for 
recruit training.”  The applicant was not drug-free, however, because his urine tested positive for 
cocaine use the next day, which indicates that he had ingested the drug within the prior three 
days.4 

The applicant now alleges that he has never intentionally ingested cocaine, that he 
must have mistakenly initialed the wrong block on his Record of Military Processing, and that he 
was  the  victim  of  a  prank.    The  Board  is  not  persuaded  that  the  applicant’s  response  on  the 
Record  of  Military  Processing  was  a  mistake.    The  question  about  drug  use,  for  which  he 
initialed the left-hand “Yes” block, is the last question on the page, and he had initialed the right-
hand “No” block for all of the thirteen questions above it.  Therefore, his initials in the “Yes” 
block  stand  out  as  an  obvious  change.    Given  the  format  of  the  page,  had  the  applicant  been 
initialing the form carelessly, it is extremely unlikely that he would have accidentally switched to 
the “Yes” block for the last question about drug use after initialing the “No” block for the first 
thirteen questions on the page. 

It is theoretically possible that someone played a prank on the applicant by trick-
ing him into ingesting cocaine.  His own assertion that he never used illegal drugs—contrary to 
his answer on the Record of Military Processing—and his father’s claim that it could have hap-
pened at a social event prior to the applicant’s enlistment, however, are insufficient to persuade 
the Board that the Coast Guard erred in concluding that he knowingly ingested the cocaine. 

 
4. 

 
5. 

 
6. 

The applicant was 26 years old when he enlisted and knew or should have known 
that the cocaine might still be in his system since he must have ingested it just a couple of days 
before he enlisted.  His positive urinalysis suggests that he made an all-too-common error among 
recruits by simply hoping or assuming that the cocaine would be out of his system by the time of 
the urinalysis.  The Board does not believe that someone who has knowingly ingested cocaine 

                                                 
1 33 C.F.R. § 52.24(b). 
2 Id. 
3 Arens v. United States, 969 F.2d 1034, 1037 (Fed. Cir. 1992); Sanders v. United States, 594 F.2d 804, 813 (Ct. Cl. 
1979). 
4 See U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, “Testing Hair for Illicit Drug Use” (January 1993), 
www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/GovPubs/hairt.txt,  stating  that  urinalysis  detects  cocaine  use  for  two  to  three  days 
following  ingestion;    Substance  Abuse  &  Mental  Health  Services  Administration  www.oas.samhsa.gov/SROS/ 
sros8027.htm, stating that urinalysis detects cocaine use for up to three days following ingestion; but see National 
Institute on Drug Abuse, www.nida.nih.gov, stating that the urine of habitual cocaine users may test positive more 
than three days after the last ingestion. 

within the last couple of days can honestly claim to be drug-free.  Therefore, the Board finds that 
the applicant has not proved by a preponderance of the evidence that the Coast Guard erred in 
concluding that he had lied about being drug-free on the day he enlisted. 
 

The Board notes, however, that the applicant’s recruiter erred by failing to ensure 
that the applicant explained his “Yes” response to the inquiry about past drug use on the Record 
of Military Processing, as the form requires.  It is possible that, had the recruiter demanded an 
explanation, their discussion of the matter would have deterred the applicant from certifying that 
he was drug-free and from enlisting with cocaine in his system.  Because the recruiter did not 
ensure  that  the  form  was  fully  completed  and  the  applicant  presumably  ingested  the  cocaine 
before he began active duty, the Board believes his discharge should be upgraded from general to 
“uncharacterized.”  Although drug abuse was not one of the listed bases for an uncharacterized 
discharge  under  the  Personnel  Manual  in  effect  in  2004,  it  is  today  pursuant  to  Article 
12.B.20.b.1. of the current Personnel Manual.  

7. 

 
8. 

Therefore, relief should be granted in part by upgrading the applicant’s discharge 
from a general discharge for misconduct under Article 12.B.18. of the Personnel Manual to an 
uncharacterized discharge under Article 12.B.20.  However, because he has not proved by a pre-
ponderance of the evidence that his narrative reason for discharge, “Fraudulent Entry into Mili-
tary Service, Drug Abuse,” is erroneous or unjust,5 no other corrections are warranted. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[ORDER AND SIGNATURES APPEAR ON NEXT PAGE] 

 

 

                                                 
5 Under 10 U.S.C. § 1552, the Board is authorized not only to correct errors but to remove injustices from any Coast 
Guard  military record.  For the purposes of the BCMRs,  “‘[i]njustice’,  when  not also  ‘error’, is treatment by the 
military authorities, that shocks the sense of justice, but is not technically illegal.” Reale v. United States, 208 Ct. Cl. 
1010, 1011 (1976).  The Board has authority  to determine  whether an injustice exists on a  “case-by-case basis.” 
Docket No. 2002-040 (DOT BCMR, Decision of the Deputy General Counsel, Dec. 4, 2002).   

The application of  former SA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, USCG, for correction of 

his military record is granted in part as follows: 

ORDER 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
The Coast Guard shall issue him a new DD 214 incorporating the following corrections: 
 

•  Block 24 of his DD 214 shall show an uncharacterized discharge; and 
•  Block 25 shall show Article 12-B-20 of the Personnel Manual as the separation authority.   

 
The following notation may be made in Block 18 of the DD 214:  “Action taken pursuant 

to order of BCMR.” 

 
No other relief is granted. 

 

 
 

 
 

 

 
 

 
 

 

 
 

 
 

 

 
 

 
 

 

 
 

 
 

 

 
 
 Julia Andrews 

 

 
 
 Lillian Cheng 

 

 
 
 Paul B. Oman