Corrective Training vs Punishment

[Courtney Massengale]

Wow. I wonder if some commanders abused it and so a brigade commander required the processing through JAG. My brigade never had a problem with it since we made sure that the summarized was simply an escalation from formal counseling (i.e, the first your late to formation, verbal counseling/corrective training, the second time put it on paper, and the third time it was a summarized Article 15, provided there wasn't extenuating circumstances and that the offenses occured relatively close together). It might be something to rengage with your commander to see if there was some abuse that resulted in some knee jerk reaction or if that's just the way it always was and nobody thought to challenge it.

To put all the cards on the table… the primary reason was because TDS had a ####-hot Major who could spin straw into reduced sentences. Like you mentioned, the Summarized are building blocks up to a 14-12C or BCD Special. This cat was using errors in prior proceedings to get time off, charges reduced, etc. JAG had to review all Summarized so that there weren't mistakes that would cause problems later down the road (violating the 24 hours, poorly worded charge sheets, incorrect counseling statements, etc).

Don't get me wrong – I love TDS. They're one of the few groups of people in the Army who are doing something directly related to the Constitution all day every day. I sometimes wish they weren't so dedicated to their job.