Hugo Black

“ The only statute which directly bears upon 'certificates of discharge' for enlisted men, Article of War 108, set out below, [3] does not particularly prescribe the types or contents of certificates authorized to be granted. But pursuant to authority granted by Congress, [4] the War Department many years ago promulgated Army Regulation No. 150 which provided for three types of certificates of discharge: honorable, dishonorable, and unclassified. [5] An honorable discharge was one granted to a soldier whose conduct in service had been such as to warrant his reenlistment. ”

“ When this new situation arose, it was certainly within the province of the War Department to provide for its solution by, among other things, issuing to those returned home an appropriate form of certificate, whether of the honorable discharge variety, a 'discharge from the draft,' or some special form designed specifically for the occasion. Respondent was inducted into the Army and was discharged before he reached a mobilization camp for final processing. His discharge adequately indicates these facts. The law demands no more. ”

“ Had the Armistice not been declared, had respondent gone on to Camp Dodge, and had he then been rejected for any reason there, he would have received, not an honorable discharge from the Army, but a 'Discharge from Draft.' Yet we are asked to give the regulations and certificates a judicial construction, contrary to the Army's construction, whereby respondent, who got no farther than his local board, would stand in a better status than the tens of thousands of other draftees who came much closer to complete integration into the Army than he ever did. ”