What happens if you never get on the plane to go to navy boot camp will you be discharged?

Answer 1

You will be considered AWOL (Absent Without Leave). If you have not reported or been apprehended within 27 days, you will be considered a Deserter, a serious offense in peace time, even more serious in war time. An imprisonable offense either way.

If you are considering going AWOL, consider this:

• If you report, you will go to boot camp, serve six years and come home. You will have some good times, some not so good times, and you might meet that special someone you would have otherwise never had the opportunity to meet.
• If you go AWOL, you will live a life of hiding. You will spend the next 27 years trying to Dodge first AWOL Apprehension, then the FBI and US Marshall service. Likely as not, the feds will never get your case; AWOL Apprehension is that good. You will then be tossed in the brig, and you will want to consider protective custody because deserters are considered the lowest of the low. Once you receive your Court Marshall, you will be transferred to Leavenworth, where you will do what you are told when you are told how you are told. You will not receive enough food, you will be worked at hard labor (literally making little rocks out of big ones). You will not see your family often enough. You will live in a six foot by nine foot cell with at least one other person. While you are reading or trying to write a letter, or even trying to eat, your cell mate will be emptying his bowels two feet away.

This is not made up. This is intended to show you a true picture, to expose you to the facts, and let you decide.

If you go AWOL, you will be discharged, but not before you are brought up on charges and convicted. You will serve your time too before you ever get released. That time will be five times greater than the time you might serve for a standard enlistment.

True, you could lose your life in the service of your country. You may not even agree with the political reasons that got us into the wars, but we're there, and you volunteered--there is no draft, there is no compulsory service in the US. You may be scared, everyone gets scared. What you do with that fear is another matter.

I'll leave you with this. The fear you face on a battle field is pale in comparison to the fear you face behind the wire. On the battlefield you have a choice or many choices. Inside the choices are made for you. Take it from someone who has been in both.