Question

[jynx.livejournal.com]

(if not allowed, delete)

....was Cap ever officially discharged from the army?

Comments

[metallic-sweet.livejournal.com]

...That's a really good question. o.o

[jynx.livejournal.com]

Cuz I'm doing a psychotic post on SHRA (been doing it this week....) and if stuff turns military... oy. So, I think he hasn't, but I want to double check!!

[13-lucky-charms.livejournal.com]

Ya know I've been wondering that too xD

(and then curiosity got the best of me and I looked up Military style wedding apparel ......yeah I'm sure you know where I was headed with that. XD;; )

[tonks07.livejournal.com]

If he was declared dead (when he was frozen) wouldn't that get him out of army? Good question tho. I'm interested to see people who have military knowledge's answers.

[jynx.livejournal.com]

uhm, but once he was defrosted? to get back pay, one would assume. and there's been a general assumption by fans that he does receive his backpay

[tavella.livejournal.com]

There's been a progression over the years, including at least onc when he was involuntarily recalled, IIRC. In the 80s, he got a huge chunk of back pay from his time from 45 on. I believe at this point he's formally retired, though.

[jynx.livejournal.com]

:D ilu

[anonymiss731.livejournal.com]

Though the crazy amount of universe and timeline disagreements in Marvel's universes can fuck up any hard facts this is what I figure. He was in the field when he fell out of that plane into the ice so he is not discharged he is considered MIA (you might find this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_In_Action helpful especially the World War section). Though it is possible that he was discharged when he was recovered I don't think he was. There are a lot more people separated then discharged (http://www.answers.com/topic/military-discharge#Reasons_for_discharge) The major point of a discharge is over benefits and if being discharged gave his survivors benefits well it's a moot point cause he didn't have a wife because he left his girl to become a Super Soldier and his parent's were dead before he joined up. So what would be the point in officially discharging him. In our time it doesn't look like he's discharged either to me. He is in the service of SHIELD which for all it's voluntary nature is under a branch of the military (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_S.H.I.E.L.D._members) I believe he is still an active member of the army until he retires finishes his enlist time or dies...(this depends on what universe you're following).

[jynx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's....more of what I figured. :) Thank you!

[anonymiss731.livejournal.com]

Your Welcome...I'm sorry I'm so wordy...I just get bored and then end up manking long random comments

[jynx.livejournal.com]

Hun? A friend made a post about the SHRA. I made a rambly comment. Then I made a 2200 word post on the matter, and I'm still updating, fixing it. XD I know what you mean!

[anonymiss731.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha...That is great. You're a comment master!

[jynx.livejournal.com]

XD I have no idea what that meaaaaans, but thanks! :)

[anonymiss731.livejournal.com]

*points over to icon* You're beyond comment Queen, you're like the Merlin of comments. Me and Casiedearest once got into a fun fight over who could leave a bigger comment so we set up a challenge and the next person to post in the comm we we're in we'd try to leave the biggest comment ever. I had to break my comment up into like six comments, so did Casie but I won by a few hundred words. It was hysterical because the poster was new to the comm. She was an innocent bystander in our need to make insane comments

[jynx.livejournal.com]

AHAHAHA That is fantastic and awesome. Yay fandom insanity~

[otherhazards.livejournal.com]

I would argue that his time in the Army was up DURING his stay in the ice, but it may also work like a suspension, wherein his time resumed upon being thawed out again.
I think the biggest argument against his still being in the military in ANY capacity other than honorary and symbolic is his lack of regular -contact- with the Army chain of command, and his attitude towards Fury.
You do not talk to your superior officers like that often, even if you don't like them. Period.
-Let alone the moody walking-out thing Cap does on a semi-regular basis.
Cap has either been honorably separated, retired due to his time in the ice counting as time served, or Re-instated into beaurocratical life as a civilian after being declared alive instead of dead.
My money's on one of the first two.

One thing's for sure, and that's that the army has done LOTS of paperwork on this. Cap gets to cut through a lot of red tape because of a judicious use of the good old boy network, and people jut not wanting to argue with him on general principle though, so they probably wouldn't have made HIM wade through as much BS when he first got back.

Still, the mental image Cap telling the Army he wants to officially retire so he can marry Tony without falling foul of modern-day military law... (G)

[otherhazards.livejournal.com]

...And yes, Fury's technically not in the military any more either, but it's the same thing as a soldier talking back to the director of the CIA, if not worse.

[jynx.livejournal.com]

Gee, look at what i started~ I want to know if the army has the right to try Steve under military tribunal and do whatever they want with him, and everyone gets marriage plots! XD

[otherhazards.livejournal.com]

I know two things about the military.
One, there's a rule for everything, or one will be made.
Two, rules can be bent, suspended, or rigorously enforced, depending on the personalities of the people involved. It's a world of absolutes, enforced by approximates.
So depending on what was going on at the time, how public opinion was on Steve at the time, what his history with the officer making the decision was, what was happening -politically-...
They could nail him to the wall, or use him to justify making long-overdue changes to 'don't ask, don't tell'. It just depends.

I do know that marrying a person of the same gender is grounds for discharge from the military, though I think it's more of a general or administrative discharge than a dishonorable one. I could be wrong.

Fury's reaction to Steve declaring intent would be one of two things:
1. (bites cigar) Figures.
2. I didn't know you wanted outta the Army THAT bad... (grins)

[ymfaery]

When Steve temporarily quit being Captain America and ran around as Nomad, was that after the ice? And does quitting at that point count as a discharge if he wasn't already?

[dorothy1901]

If it's set in 1945 or earlier, then it's before the ice. Everything else is either during the ice*, or after the ice. So the Nomad arc, a contemporaneous story published in the mid-1970s, was definitely after the ice.

*There is at least one Captain America story set during the ice: "American Dream" by Mark Waid.