From The New York Times —
By
The U.S. Army would review the cases of thousands of former soldiers who were separated from the service after Oct. 7, 2001, with less-than-honorable discharges and potentially upgrade their service paperwork to read “honorable,” under a settlement agreement filed this week in U.S. District Court in Connecticut.
The agreement, which requires a judge’s approval, could result in thousands of veterans gaining access to the full array of Department of Veterans Affairs benefits, which they were previously not guaranteed because of minor misconduct while in uniform.
The agreement, which was filed on Tuesday, was a result of a class-action lawsuit filed against the service in 2017 by two Army veterans from Connecticut, Steve Kennedy, 34, of Fairfield, and Alicia Carson, 32, of Southington.
Their lawsuit alleged that the Army Discharge Review Board had systematically failed to follow guidance set by then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in 2014 that required the service to consider mental health conditions when veterans request that their discharge status be upgraded.
Mr. Kennedy was granted a discharge upgrade in 2018, after being denied twice before, he said. Ms. Carson also had her discharge upgraded to honorable in 2017, after the lawsuit was filed, according to the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale University, which represents the plantiffs together with the firm of Jenner & Block.
The agreement would compel the Army to automatically review the cases of about 3,500 former soldiers who have displayed symptoms of, or claimed, mental health and behavioral disorders or who experienced sexual trauma on active duty, and had their applications for discharge upgrades rejected by the Army Discharge Review Board.
As many as 50,000 to 100,000 additional former soldiers may be eligible for upgrade reviews as members of the class-action suit, according to the Yale clinic.
“I think for me and a lot of people there was a lot of shame associated with it, and it was something I wanted to keep it to myself,” Mr. Kennedy said of his general discharge. In the years since being forced out of the Army, he earned a bachelor’s degree and is now studying for a law degree at the University of Connecticut.
“The board in my case directly reconsidered and approved my honorable discharge,” Mr. Kennedy said. “The most important thing to me is that everyone else gets that same review.”
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