Ok, i know, e4 legal mafia yadda yadda, but consider this:

guy joins the army reserves, goes to college, gets deployed to iraq after his junior year.

He finishes his deployment and returns to the us for his last year of college. He's about a month from graduation when he falls while setting up chairs AT A NATIONAL GUARD ARMORY, though he was doing it on his own time, so it wasn't a work or army related injury. his knee is all busted up, and he had to get corrective surgery on it:



he's about to graduate and he's engaged, but now he thinks they'll possibly try to kick him out of the army, which would mean he would lose the rest of the money they owe him AND he might even have to pay some back.

now, he doesn't KNOW that they'll kick him out, and it could be the "e4 legal mafia" telling him that they will. I guess some of the army higher-ups can clear that up, but if they did do that, would that not be a god-awful way to treat someone who served his country?

4/16/2006 10:42:32 PM

yea that would be pretty fucking weak.

4/16/2006 10:51:20 PM

What kind of pansy busts their knee setting up chairs?

4/16/2006 11:01:39 PM

not quite as good as the instance where yahoo wouldnt give a troop's family access to his email so they could have one last record of the emails he sent home.

4/16/2006 11:29:23 PM

Quote :

""e4 legal mafia""

???

4/16/2006 11:38:35 PM

what causes him to think that they'll try to kick him out of the army?

4/16/2006 11:42:19 PM

^^
military shorthand for "people who don't know shit giving you legal advice"

basically the government's version of the folks who respond to court questions in The Lounge  

4/16/2006 11:47:33 PM

Quote :

"not quite as good as the instance where yahoo wouldnt give a troop's family access to his email so they could have one last record of the emails he sent home."

props to yahoo on that.

4/16/2006 11:56:10 PM

What exactly are the circumstances of him being owed more money? Is it for the purposes of paying off student loans?

I'll assume that it's one of those cases of "We'll pay off x money in student loans for y years of service" contracts. In this case, I'd tell him to go to his unit legal representative he should have one. If not, give me his contact info and I can help him locate his. My unit legal rep gets upset with all my "I know this guy" cases and tells me to have them contact THEIR legal reps. Oops.

First of all, try to see whether or not he's really getting a medical discharge for the knee. What did he do to it while setting up chairs that it's going to put him out of the military? Secondly, try to find out the terms of the contract--If this situation is what I think it is, he's probably going to only get maybe .5x for .5y service. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if he might have to owe money back if he got more money than he had received. I know ROTC scholarships generally work the same way (i.e., if you break your contract but took scholarship money, you owe them back).

Also, have him contact his doctor (military) and find out whether or not this constitutes having him medically discharged and why.

[Edited on April 17, 2006 at 8:27 AM. Reason : .]

4/17/2006 8:03:46 AM

^^are you being sarcastic?

4/17/2006 9:29:19 AM

privacy is a real sonovabitch

there is shit on my computer i wouldn't want my parents to just be checking all willy nilly if i died tomorrow

4/17/2006 9:36:53 AM

http://news.com.com/Yahoo+denies+family+access+to+dead+marines+e-mail/2100-1038_3-5500057.html?tag=st.prev

thats the story, fwiw

[Edited on April 17, 2006 at 9:53 AM. Reason : doh]

4/17/2006 9:52:42 AM

Quote :

"A Yahoo spokeswoman said the company's terms of service require the company not to disclose private e-mail communications for its users. Yahoo will turn over the account to family members only after they go through the courts to verify their identity and relationship with the deceased."

whats the problem? Yahoo protecting the dude's personal info?

4/17/2006 10:09:31 AM

yeah, i don't think i'd want people rummaging through my personal files if i died.

4/17/2006 10:35:19 AM

Quote :

"What exactly are the circumstances of him being owed more money? Is it for the purposes of paying off student loans?"

\

yes. I don't know where he got the info about possibly being discharged, and whether it was from a reputable source or just some friend in his unit, etc.

What happened was that he was carrying chairs and didn't see a bench in front of him, and he fell and landed on his knee. He fucked it up pretty good, and there is some ligament damage as well, though they're not sure if it will need to be operated on now or can be left to heal. He'll find that out later.

4/17/2006 2:46:58 PM

I don't have every bit of information on this guy's case, but here's what I think is probably happening:

Not knowing his full medical situation, here's the premise of the situation. What seems to have happened (and basing this on a lot of people I know who enlisted either during or immediately after college) was that part of his contract for enlistment stated that he'd be paid (I'll use imaginary numbers here) $40,000 over 4 years in exchange for 4 years of service.

Assuming he is discharged or going to be discharged (again, assumption): As far as the government is concerned, it's like saying "I'll pay you $20 to mow my lawn"--if you only mow half of it, you'll get $10. If they paid you $20 already and you still only mowed half the lawn, you'd owe $10. It's not as much an issue of screwing troops over as it is more of a contractual agreement. Have him get with legal to see how much of the money he already has he can protect

(Also missing a few key pieces of information to give better advice on this--have him consult his doctor on this also as to what the future of his condition is. If he's not getting discharged over this, it's a non-issue--other than the fact that it looks painful)

How much did they pay off for student loans and how much longer does he have to pay it off?

[Edited on April 17, 2006 at 10:09 PM. Reason : .]

[Edited on April 17, 2006 at 10:13 PM. Reason : .]

4/17/2006 9:59:10 PM