GI Bill Information: Ask the Expert BlogCan I Get the GI Bill if My General Discharge Is Changed to Honorable?
by GIBillExpert
There are a lot of circumstances under which a discharge is changed officially after a service-member is separated. One of the major reasons that a discharge is upgraded is to qualify for various veterans benefits. And, like any other benefits, the GI Bill (both the old Montgomery GI Bill and the new Post 9/11 GI Bill) only requires that you have an honorable discharge and be otherwise eligible. According to the law, it is as if the discharge were always honorable.
So, if your discharge is changed to honorable, you will be able to collect your GI Bill benefits. Of course, government paperwork being what it is, it may take some time for the change to make it into the Veterans Affairs department’s system, although generally they are very good about getting it done quickly. However, if there is any problem there, all you will have to do is supply the VA with your new discharge orders.
31 Responses to “Can I Get the GI Bill if My General Discharge Is Changed to Honorable?”
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About The Authors
Get answers to questions about the old & new GI Bills
- Former Supervisor of Military Personnel Services, including Education Benefits
- Last assignment: Division Command Sergeant Major/E-9
- 36 years of military service
- Served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps
- His father, grandfather, and two uncles served in the U.S. Army, and his son served in the U.S. Navy
- Graduate of Virginia Military Institute
Oh! This is great! Thank you for putting to rest many
confusion I had heard about this recently.
My dd form 214 says general under honorable conditions however in the comment box it also states completed first term. Does this still disqualify me from using my GI Bill?
I should have added that i did reenlist and that second enlistment is when I made the mistake that caused me to leave the Air Force.
Yes, as the first term did not result in a separate discharge. If you would have went to the end of your enlistment, got out, so you had a “break in service” of at least one day, and then enlisted again, that would have resulted in two separate enlistments, both with their own characterized discharge.
Ron
I got out with a OTH discharge and received my G.I.Bill Benefits because my first period of service was considered honorable. On your DD-214 form my remarks continuous honorable active service: Dates served// Member has completed first full term of service//nothing follows
I hope this helps..
For the initial question if your discharge is changed to honorable then thats what it is!
Don’t be fooled to think that the service wouldn’t screw you over my CO did and didn’t even realize what he had signed until I was walking out the door he listened to the Sgt Maj who was a burn happy bitch!
Mr. Ray is correct for a general discharge if you only did an initial enlistment but recieved a General then you are out of luck no GI bill.
If you have reenlisted and recieved an Honorable discharge for previous years of service then you will be able to get the GI bill. You may have to work a bit harder at it like I did and get your DD-214 to your local VA office and get a certified copy, then send it to the VA office that is dealing with your claim.
I served 15 years in the Marines and was given a General discharged in 09 I recieved my Post 9-11 GIbill.
When I was discharging, I received general under honorable conditions after 5 1/2 yrs of active service. However, the 1st sgt. required that I sign a whole list of things under the “no” category pertaining to eligibility of VA benefits. What was this form? How can it apply if I got an honorable conditioned discharge?
You didn’t get a fully Honorable Discharge – you got a General Discharge Under Honorable Conditions. There is a big difference between the two. Only a fully Honorable Discharge will allow you to use your GI Bill benefits.
now that I fully understand, however, when it pertains to medical, loans, and other such benefits, I was required to mark the “no” box. This is something that I do not understand and I wish I knew what the form was that had the yes and no boxes for VA eligibility.
If I get my under honorable changed to honorable but I only served 2 years and 3 months of a 3 year contract do I still qualify
If you get your character of service upgraded to Honorable. then yes you would qualify. For the Post 9/11 GI Bill, you would be at the 80% level, provided at least your two years was after September 10, 2001.
For the Montgomery GI Bill, if you made the $1,200 contribution, you would get one month of benefit for each month served.
Mr Kness, can you please reference the instruction that states you must have a break in service to have previous enlistments count as your Honorable. All I read was that you had to have 36 months of credible service after 9/11/01. If someone served 17 years of honorable service with 4 enlistments during that time, but made a mistake resulting in an “under honorable” discharge in may last year of service you are saying he would not be eligible for benefits.
The way the Post 9/11 GI Bill rules read is you have to have at least three years of service, after September 10, 2001, to get your 36 months of education benefit paid at the 100% level and your discharge character-of-service has to be Honorable. Unless you got out of the military for at least one day, between enlistments, you didn’t have four enlistments, you had one enlistment with three re-enlistments and you will get one discharge at the end. If that discharge isn’t Honorable, then your GI Bill benefit just went out the window (unless you can get it changed later to Honorable through the Board of Corrections).
Ron
I have to disagree with the last comment, I am living proof of continuous active service(36months) got out with a OTH on my second enlistment and have received my G.I.Bill because as stated by the V.A. my first initial contract was considered honorable.
I am trying to figure out how to change my General Under Honorable status to just Honorable. About how long will this take. I was not ever in trouble but when o got out it says general under honorable and i cannot get a job on post with it stating this so they told me to get it changed to honorable and made it sound like it was easy. Where and what do i need to do to accomplish this
You have to apply to the Board of Corrections that handles your branch of service. Fill out DD Form 293 and submit it. The process normally takes around six months to complete, if it warrants changing. There is no guarantee they will change it – you are requesting a change based on the information you provide to them.
Ron
thanks alot ron kness that was really helpfull i appreciate it
Thank you all for your inputs. But after reading more and more, I became even more confused. So I will lay out my situation in the hopes that one of you intelligent folks can help me out.
I served from 95 to 07, re-enlisted 3 times. During the middle of my last enlistment i got two Field grade Art 15 and got discharged under honorable conditions. My QUESTIONS is “Am I qualified for the G.I. Bill? esp the Post 9/11??
Second question is for the upgrading part. After I got out of the service I went to get my record from the local PD where i got the DUI and found out that my record is clean, nothing there but my name. My other infraction was about a female soldier working for me in Iraq. I wont go into details, but reason for my discharge was “Pattern of Misconduct” because of those two incidents…..I was never in any type of punishment before. With that, do I have a chance of upgrading my discharge to Honorable??
thank you
D
To answer your first question, no you are not eligible for the GI Bill because of the character-of-service of your discharge. It has to be Honorable; an General Under Honorable Conditions is not the same and it disqualifies you for the GI Bill.
To answer your second questions I doubt if you will get your discharge character-of-service changed, but you can try. Submit DD Form 293 to your branch’s Board of Corrections. It takes about 6 months to get an ruling.
Ron
If you served your first enlistment after 9-11 and received an honorable and got a general under honrable on the second enlistment YOU STILL QUALIFY FOR ALL OF YOUR BENEFITS. TRUST ME
Yes you do qualify for your GI Bill benefits, if they were in fact, two separate enlistments and not an enlistment and a re-enlistment without a break in service.
Ron
The following is straight from the 2009-2010 Handbook For School Certifying Officials for the VA concerning the Post 9/11 GI Bill. Notice at the end it states “A DISCHARGE FOR CONTINUING ACTIVE DUTY”. If you have served more than 3 years and re-enlisted honorably, but later were ADSEPed with an “under honorable condition” You are absolutely still entitled to the Post 9/11 GI Bill.
B. Period of Eligibility. In general, an individual’s eligibility to use chapter 33 benefits expires 15 years from the date of the last discharge or release from active duty of at least 90 consecutive days.
In order to retain eligibility, after meeting the service requirements, an individual must:
• Be honorably discharged from Armed Forces; or
• Be released from Armed Forces with service characterized as honorable and placed on the retired list, temporary disability retired list, or transferred to the Fleet Reserve or the Fleet Marine Corps Reserve; or
• Be released from Armed Forces with service characterized as honorable for further service in a reserve component; or
• Be discharged or released from Armed Forces for—
– A medical condition which existed prior to service (EPTS),
– Hardship (HDSP), or
– A condition which interfered with duty (CIWD); or
– Continue on active duty.
That is not correct Jonathan and here is why. When you re-enlist before your ETS date, your are “discharged” on paper to comply with the law that says you have to be at the end of your term of enlistment, before you can enlist again (re-enlist), but it is only an administrative/technical action and not a discharge at all. To have an actual discharge, you have to have a break in service between enlistments of at least one day.
That is why they “discharge” you for a “few minutes or a few hours” and then get you back in under the one-day time-frame. If they went over the one-day mark, you would have to go through the whole accession process again, with a new DD4, physical, the whole shebang. Do you get a new DD4 when you re-enlist or extend your enlistment, which is really what you are doing? I don’t think so. It is all smoke-and-mirrors to comply with a law.
Ron
I received a general(under honorable conditions) discharge in the U.S Navy. I served 3 yrs on a 4 yr enlistment. While I was in I earned a Navy achievement medal and my enlisted surface warfare specialist insignia, will these two things help me in upgrading my discharge to honroable
They certainly won’t hurt. When you send in your DD Form 293, include as much information as you can. The Board will use that information and information from their own sources to make a determination. Good luck!
Ron
Ron, you give some good and bad advice…I was discharged TODAY with a general. I start school in 2 weeks with my GI. Here’s why. My initial contract was honorable, I reenlisted early for SRB (Selective Reenlistment Bonus). But fellow here’s the catch……remember when they tell you to pay attention to your DD-214 berfore you sign it, well I did, and guess what I made them enter ” Honorable service from July 2002 to July 2006 to qualify for MGIB benefits” DONE SON!
Ron,
You are putting out wrong information on here. I was in 8 years I received a general under honorable conditions discharge. I just started college using MY POST 9/11 G.I. BILL. If you re-enlist in the service and you elected to get the G.I. BILL your 1st term you keep 100%of the Bill. My wife works on post in the education section and as long has your first enlistment was complete rather thru ETS or Re enlistment you keep the G.I. BILL… I am in college right now…
carl
Hello, I recieved a General Discharge under honorable conditions a little over 6 months ago =S I did about 3 1/2 yrs of service by the time I was removed. I am very dedicated to the military and I can’t even get into the Army guard now bc of *drug abuse* on a random night >_<. I really want to go in til retirement minus idiot mistakes like that. Is there any hope for me of getting this upgraded to a honorable discharge, in a way where i can re-enlist, and even be given any kind of benefit back? I appreciate the wisdom.
But if you wouldn’t have caught that, it would not have been recorded and the only discharge showing would have been your general discharge. You would not have been able to use your GI Bill with only a General discharge.
Ron
But your first term has to show up on your DD-214 as Honorable. That is where many soldiers are missing out. That first term is not recorded and when reviewing their DD-214 before discharge, the soldiers are missing it. If it isn’t recorded, then they have to go through the long process of appealing for an upgrade to the Board of Corrections. That can take up to six months to get a ruling back.
Ron
You only hop would be to appeal to your branch of service’s Board of Corrections. Fill out DD Form 293. There are not any guarantees and it can take up to six months to get a decision back, but that is about the only recourse you have.
Ron