Administrative Actions

Letters of Reprimand (LOR), Letters of Counseling (LOC), Letters of Admonishment (LOA), Unfavorable Information File (UIF) entries, Administrative Holds, Promotion Selection Record Entries, and Investigator General (IG) investigations can ruin careers. Many times it is not a commander’s intent to end your career but the combination of an inexperienced commander and an inexperienced Judge Advocate giving advice (if a JAG is even consulted) can have devastating consequences on your career. We are in a time of military downsizing. Sometimes it is the commander’s intent to end your career over something minor and use creative ways of doing that, such as taking one act of misconduct and spinning it into several LORs. Administrative Actions that were common years ago can kill a career today. Believe it or not, DUIs were not always the career killer they are now. We don’t like it, but we now live in a one-mistake military. You don’t want to be your commander’s mistake. Another reason you want a great response to an Administrative Action is that many of them can be torn up by the commander or supervisor who wrote it. A superior commander or higher level supervisor doesn’t need to know their subordinate has back tracked on an action. During my career, I successfully convinced a state Adjutant General to disregard the findings of his IG and allow a Brigadier General to retire without an adverse grade determination.