Court Opinion

ID: 9448889
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:48:09.390139+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:35.653431
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Judge
(dissenting).
I agree with the Comptroller General (39 Comp.Gen. 324 (1959)) that the Act of July 24, 1956, 70 Stat. 626, on which plaintiff must ground his claim,- applies only to a “discharge” “prior to August 10, 1946,” from enlisted service, not to such a discharge or separation from commissioned service. In 1956 Congress deliberately chose to malee its new statute turn on August 10, 1946, because it was supplementing the prior Act of that date, 60 Stat. 993,* under which certain enlisted men then in the Navy could thereafter be transferred to the Fleet Reserve after 20 years of active duty in any military branch of the federal service, even though they did not have 20 years of active naval service. That statute clearly applied only to enlisted men. But it did not cover enlisted men already discharged from the Navy or Marine Corps prior to August 10, 1946, whose total active service in all branches amounted to 20 years but who did not have that measure of naval service alone.5 The 1956 Act was designed to close that gap, and that gap *416alone. Senate Report No. 2553, 84th Cong., 2d'Sess., U.S.Code Cong, and Adm. News, 1956, p. 1351, pointed out that “[s]ince August 10, 1946, enlisted members of the Navy and Marine Corps have been able to' credit their active duty performed in other services toward the computation of time required for transfer to the Fleet Reserve and later entitlement to retired pay,” and that the effect of the new bill would be to grant that privilege to persons discharged prior to August 10, 1946. The report said that only one individual was known to be affected by the bill — a former marine master sergeant discharged before August 10, 1946, who had 20 years of active federal service but only 16 in the Navy (and 4 in the Army) — but the “legislation is general, however, since there may be other cases.” In the light of this history and the careful reference in the 1956 Act to discharges prior to August 10, 1946, the statute should be read, I believe, directly upon the earlier 1946 Act, and therefore as applying only to a discharge (before August 10, 1946) from enlisted service.
The face of the 1956 Act, it is true, does not refer to enlisted status or distinguish between enlisted men and officers. But the use of general phraseology is understandable. The inclusion of the catch-all term, “any former member of the Navy or Marine Corps,” is not uncommon; for this statute the phrase would be appropriate to cover former naval personnel with 20 years of enlisted service before August 10, 1946, who might later have obtained commissioned or warrant rank and then resigned before the 1956 Act (as would be plaintiff’s case if he had had 20 years service before August 11, 1943). The neutral terms “discharge” or “discharged” may in other contexts include a separation from commissioned service. But in this instance the close connection between the 1946 Act and the supplementing 1956 Act shows, to my mind,- that only a discharge from enlisted status was meant; and the immediate legislative history of the 1956 Act negatives any purpose in the Congressional mind to broaden the 1946 statute to commissioned officers or to a discharge from officer status. The 1956 legislation was very narrow in aim and coverage.
For me, therefore, the ultimate question in this case is whether plaintiff's “discharge” from his permanent enlisted rank of master sergeant took place on August 11, 1943, when he accepted a permanent appointment as a Warrant Officer, or on April 15, 1944, when he was formally discharged from his enlisted status (effective as of August 11, 1943). Since the warrant was for a permanent rank, Section 7(a) of the Act of July 24, 1941, 55 Stat. 603, 604 — saving permanent grades from being affected by temporary promotions — had no application. The normal rule is that a serviceman cannot simultaneously hold a permanent enlisted rank and a permanent commission or warrant. The plaintiff’s permanent appointment as warrant officer on August 11, 1943, necessarily did away with his permanent status as a master sergeant and effected his discharge from that status by operation of law. See 39 Comp.Gen. 324, 329. The Navy recognized this when it made his discharge (delivered in April 1944) effective as of August 11, 1943. Plaintiff not having had 20 years of active federal duty at the time of his last discharge from enlisted service on August 11, 1943, he has no rights under the 1956 Act and his petition should be dismissed.

 See 10 TJ.S.C.A. § 6331.

. Enlisted men who had 20 years of naval service were covered under the legislation in effect prior to the 1946 Act.