Secret Clearance / DD214 Question

SECURITY CLEARANCE Q&A
1

My situation: Currently getting ready to interview for a large defense contractor and need to obtain a Secret clearance. I’m a degreed professional and prior service military. I have both a General Discharge and an Honorable Discharge, with the Honorable Discharge being the most recent. The General was for failing a drug test like two weeks into training, so I was kicked out within a few weeks of entering service (this was back in 2001). This was a wake up call for me and within a year or so I went on to serve my country and receive an Honorable discharge from another branch (entered 2003 and was honorably discharged in 2007). I haven’t been involved with drugs since 2001. After receiving my General Discharge I decided to enter into a faith-based drug rehabilitation “Christian Training Camp” and got my act together. And for what it’s worth I was clean before entering into this christian camp and drugs alone weren’t the sole reason why I entered the program. Few questions below:

  1. I know the General Discharge would have to listed, but should the “Christian Training Camp” be listed on my SF86 submittal as well?

  2. I’m not really worried about obtaining a final clearance (correct me if I’m wrong on this), but what are my chances of obtaining an Interim Secret?

  3. The company that I’ve applied to has already starting running some preliminary security stuff (background investigation). And while completing the questionnaire it was stated that “At Time of Hire you will need to provide proof of citizenship and if military, discharge/separation papers…”, so my question is this, can I supply my latest DD214 for my Honorable Discharge or would I need to supply them with my older General Discharge papers as well?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

2

Your most recent honorable discharge coupled with time will completely mitigate your general discharge. be sure to list both discharges on the SF-86 and provide both DD-214’s.

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3

  1. If this is applicable to section 23 EVER questions - list it, but read it carefully

  2. They aren’t given out like candy anymore, no one really knows

  3. That’s probably something you should talk to them about. On your SF, however, both discharges should be listed.

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4

You will be fine if this is your only issue. You have taken all the steps to mitigate past doings.

5

Thanks for the feedback. Question 1 is definitely in reference to section 23 of the SF86. On one hand I view it as somewhat silly to list a christian training camp on this section, but they will see my General Discharge and reason for it and would most likely find out about me attending this facility anyway, so it’s probably best to just go ahead and list it outright. It may exclude me from being able to obtain the interim, but who cares.

And for what it’s worth, if anyone else has had any experience with what I initially asked in question 3 above, if you could share your feedback/experience it’d be greatly appreciated. In the case that I’d have to submit BOTH of my DD214’s to this employer, I’m trying to get an idea about how detrimental this would be for me. Thx.

6

You need to provide everything out in the open, if I were you I would include everything going back 10 years.

7

There are far too many variables, most of which have nothing to do with you personally, to know if you will get an interim.

8

Understand that when they see your dd214 and the general discharge they will request your entire OMPF and will see everything that pretained to that discharge, Allot of people think that by law they can only view your DD214 and this is true for a job interview but that is not the case for a security clearance back ground investigation.