# Moral waivers and the 75th



## Ka-Bar (Mar 19, 2009)

I am going to be enlisting in september. going to need some moral waivers. I know im gonna have to fight for it. I plan on having all papers and information in hand when i walk in the door of the recruitment office. I currently have a Letter of Recommendation from a first sergent in the active army. Plan on securing two more recommendations of high stature. I have done alot of research. i read through the AR 601-210 etc. *I already know my chances are slim to none for a option 40. Just wanted to know if anyone heard of someone getting a option 40 with waivers needed. I would also like to hear what you Rangers think about this.* I would not waste a slot. I have been training up to Ranger PFT goals for awhile. I know my Ranger History etc. Im gonna do what i have to in order to obtain my goal.


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## Boondocksaint375 (Mar 19, 2009)

Option 40 is fairly simple to get coming out of school.  Have you talked to a recruiter yet?


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## Looon (Mar 19, 2009)

*ok*

What do you need a moral waiver for?:uhh:


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## Ka-Bar (Mar 19, 2009)

Credit card fraud. (value less than $500 so not felony/serious misconduct in Armys eyes). This happened 3 years ago but took them a year to charge me,so im on my last six months of it. Also had a juvi charge of public intox i think? long time ago. I also have a leaving the scene of a accident. I have talked to recruit for the Marines. said he could get me a Recon contract. But Rangers is the path i wanna go. Army wont really tell me much till i get off probation.


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## Boondocksaint375 (Mar 19, 2009)

Jesus dude, you were probably in General Abram's dream before he introduced his charter. 

You have a lot of "I thinks" in there.  How can you not know if you were arrested or not?


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## Looon (Mar 19, 2009)

Ka-Bar said:


> Credit card fraud. (value less than $500 so not felony/serious misconduct in Armys eyes). This happened 3 years ago but took them a year to charge me,so im on my last six months of it. Also had a juvi charge of public intox i think? long time ago. I also have a leaving the scene of a accident. I have talked to recruit for the Marines. said he could get me a Recon contract. But Rangers is the path i wanna go. Army wont really tell me much till i get off probation.


LOL Sucks to be you.:uhh:


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## Ka-Bar (Mar 19, 2009)

Boondocksaint375 said:


> Jesus dude, you were probably in General Abram's dream before he introduced his charter.
> 
> You have a lot of "I thinks" in there.  How can you not know if you were arrested or not?



*The Ranger battalion is to be an elite, light, and most proficient infantry battalion in the world; A battalion that can do things with its hands and weapons better than anyone.  The battalion will not contain any "Hoodlums" or "Brigands" and if the battalion is formed of such persons, it will be disbanded.  Wherever the battalion goes, it will be apparent that it is the best.”*
This i know. I did not know what i wanted to do with my life for awhile. I f#&%ed up. But when i found out about the Rangers and theire "life style" i knew thats what i wanted to do. But i also know it may be to late for that. That dont mean im gonna quit though. Do you think i have a chance? would you wanna serve next to someone like me.


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## Ka-Bar (Mar 19, 2009)

only one i think in there. And yes i was arrested for the PI when i was 17.


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## Looon (Mar 19, 2009)

I saw guys in Battalion get booted for writing *ONE* bad check. Of course, that was 20 years ago.

This is one of the reasons why we always say that it's harder to STAY there than it is to get there.

It is fucking easy to kicked out of the unit. It's one of the FEW units that hold s it's men to such a high standard, that it blows all others to shame.

Your behavior off base is just as important as your behavior while doing the deed. There is NO room for fucking up anywhere.


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## Ka-Bar (Mar 19, 2009)

I belive it. All i can do is have everything ready for the waiver process. Obtain my letters of recomendations. And do better than everyone else on the ASVAB,PFT ect. If i exaust all other means of obtaing a option 40 ill go 11x option 4 and try to volunteer for RIP. I wont stop till i have done everything possible. Thanks for the input Rangers.


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## Equalizer (Mar 19, 2009)

Right now, I am talking from experience-current experience as I am attempting to re-enlist. Now from what I hear at my MEPS in LA, my recruiter, and 1SGT, the Army is so full right now, they are increasingly becoming more strict on enlistment.......prior service or not. The first thing to go was waivers. They're not granting waivers like they were 6 months ago mainly due to the economy which directly influences the massive influx in enlistments. My advice is if it's the Army you want than stick with it.......but realize you may be in for a long haul. :2c:


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## Boondocksaint375 (Mar 19, 2009)

Well that sucks, there goes my back up plan if I ever got fired and couldn't get anything else lol.


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## tjwest (Mar 21, 2009)

Boondocksaint375 said:


> Well that sucks, there goes my back up plan if I ever got fired and couldn't get anything else lol.



You and me both.



Ka-Bar said:


> Credit card fraud. (value less than $500 so not felony/serious misconduct in Armys eyes). This happened 3 years ago but took them a year to charge me,so im on my last six months of it. Also had a juvi charge of public intox i think? long time ago. I also have a leaving the scene of a accident. I have talked to recruit for the Marines. said he could get me a Recon contract. But Rangers is the path i wanna go. Army wont really tell me much till i get off probation.



From a legal/administrative perspective, you're definitely going to have to deal with the two criminal convictions for fraud and hit-and-run.  As has already been mentioned a couple of times above, I too suspect you're going to have some difficulties - particularly because of the fraud conviction.  One of the issues you will face is that even if you get the moral waivers to get into the Army, at Batt you're still going to need to obtain, at a minimum, a secret clearance.  It's going to be difficult to get that with the fraud conviction on your record, and if you can't get the necessary security clearance you're going to be RFS'd.

One option you might consider, depending on the state in which you live, is that in some jurisdictions a judge may have the authority to expunge your record if you meet certain criteria (i.e. under a certain age at the time the offense was committed, performed certain rehab and/or community service, etc.).  If your record gets expunged, technically it should eliminate your need for the waivers and prevent the prior-convictions from affecting your security application and/or status (although keep in mind that if you've already disclosed it you might have a hard getting MEPS to overlook it without some legal help).  From having to deal with this issue for clients in the past in the civilian world, I know that at least in here in Wisconsin, because of various statutory provisions, it's almost impossible to get a judge to clean off your record in this state unless it's a prearranged deal with the DA's office.  However, if you have a friend or family member that practices law where you live (or a couple hundred dollars to spend on having an attorney to the research for you) you might ask someone to look into it for you.

A second option would be to pursue a pardon for your governor's office.  The likelihood of success on this depends a tremendous amount on the politics of your own state.  This is a bit of an over generalization, but for example, again here in Wisconsin, our previous governor was a big 2nd amendment guy and, on a personal level, really liked to hunt.  As a result, he granted a relatively larger number of pardons for people that committed fairly minor offenses when they were young and wanted to be able to hunt when they got older (under federal law and the law of most states, you can't legally possess a firearm if you have a felony conviction).  On the other hand, our current governor comes from a different background and is comparatively much stingier with pardons.  My understanding is that he is granting substantially fewer pardons than his predecessor.  Again, no promises that it will go anywhere, but it might be worth finding out how your governor treats the issue, particularly if s/he's a vet or tends to be pro-military.  

In regard to the PI, whether it will be an issue for you will largely depend on the nature of the violation.  That is, did you receive a citation for an ordinance violation (i.e. a non-criminal offense) or did you receive a misdemeanor conviction (i.e. a criminal offense).  Generally speaking, most PI's I've seen have been ordinance violations, which means that they do not go on your criminal record or count as a criminal offenses.  They are similar to speeding tickets.

However, if you received a misdemeanor or some other type of criminal conviction, whether it will impact you will likely depend upon whether your state seals juvenile records.  If they're sealed you should be ok.  I had a guy with me at 3rd Batt that had what would be a felony juvenile conviction here in WI (not sure what it was in his state).  However, because the state he came from sealed his juvenile records the Army was not able to use it to keep him out and he didn't run into problems with the Lautenberg Amendment (i.e. which bars felons cannot possess firearms, meaning that you can't carry a rifle and are useless to the Battalion).

In any event, I echo what has already been said above.  If this is really what you want just keep at it.  You're right to recognize that you are going to have some substantial difficulties and your chances at getting to Batt (and staying there) are not great.  At the same time, one of the things that makes Rangers great is that they don’t care if something will be difficult or if the odds are stacked against them.  You’ve got nothing to lose by going for it, so my advice is to just keep driving on.


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## Ka-Bar (Mar 21, 2009)

Thank you. your input is very helpful. I have considered these options and am currently looking into the pursuit of such. This RSD's is new to me. I was under the Impression that the clearence was cleared at MEPS. Thats a chance im willing to take.  I was also under the impression that the Army is able to look into to sealed and expunged records???


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## tjwest (Mar 21, 2009)

Ka-Bar said:


> Thank you. your input is very helpful. I have considered these options and am currently looking into the pursuit of such. This RSD's is new to me. I was under the Impression that the clearence was cleared at MEPS. Thats a chance im willing to take.  I was also under the impression that the Army is able to look into to sealed and expunged records???



Poor choice of words on my part.  RFS stands for "Released for Standards" and it's usually used in reference to guys that get booted from Batt for bad conduct or failure to meet the Ranger Standards.  For example, during my time if you got a DUI you were RFS'd automatically.  Under the hypothetical I gave above, technically you would be released for failure to obtain a security clearance, not for failure to adhere to standards.

Also, there is a difference between records that are sealed and records that are expunged.  An expunged record is one that has been erased.  It's as if the offense or conviction never happened.  In that instance there wouldn't be anything for the army to look at.

A sealed record is one that is "locked" so that no one is permitted to view it unless they meet certain criteria.  Assuming that your offenses were for violations of state, rather than federal law, you would have to take a look at the laws of the state to determine what the criteria is.  In most states, no one can look at the record unless a court orders the record to be unsealed or there is a specific statute giving the agency permission (for example, usually state statutes will authorize PSI writers -- or in some states called pre-sentence report authors -- to have access to the records).  States vary in regard to how cooperative they are willing to be with the federal government.  So whether the army would have access would depend on the laws of your individual state.

One problem that some people run into is when information regarding the conviction -- whether sealed or expunged -- comes from an "unofficial" source.  For example, if you write it down on your enlistment forms you can bet that they are going to ask you about it regardless of whether they can get access to the actual records.  Another common problem is that there are lots of databases online now days that compilations of tons and tons of public records.  If your conviction gets picked up by one of these databases it's probably not going to be erased if/when the official record gets expunged unless you take some sort of action directly with the company that runs the database to have it erased (assuming they're even willing to cooperate).  That means that there will be an unofficial record of your conviction available forever online, or at least until the database company goes out of business.  Obviously, the army would have access to this if some recruiter or desk jockey at MEPS took a look.


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## Ka-Bar (Mar 21, 2009)

well even if my state does allow the Army to view my sealed and or expunged records. At least it would show some anishative on my part. I also think im goin to wait for the Armys fiscal year to restart (Oct 1). I figure there may be more RIP slots to go round. I just gotta cover all my bases ahead of time. Then check and re-check for more options. Thank you Sir. You seem to be a very educated and insiteful individual. Damn same about favre leaving the Packers. O well i still got the Colts!


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