Personality disorder (PD) discharges occupy a shadow zone in military separations. Unlike disciplinary discharges or those for willful misconduct, PD discharges are cloaked in medical terminology – they are diagnoses of character rather than acts. Beneath that veneer lies a system that has severed the uniform from thousands of troops, often denying them benefits, health care, and a fair account of what went wrong.
From 2001 to 2010 alone, the U.S. military separated more than 31,000 servicemembers on the basis of alleged personality disorder. In earlier years (2001-2007), approximately 26,000 enlisted personnel were discharged for a “pre-existing personality disorder” diagnosis, representing about 2.6% of all discharges in that window. That number fell after internal reforms – by 2008, PD discharges declined by some 31% following procedural changes within the DoD.
Why Personality Disorders (PD)?
PDs are enduring patterns of thinking and behavior that deviate from cultural expectations, are inflexible, and lead to distress or impairment. In military parlance, they are often treated as pre-existing conditions and therefore not caused by service. Under DoD instruction 1332.14, a PD discharge is supposed to occur only when the condition “interferes with the execution of duties.” The instruction even allows for retention: PD is “not incompatible with military service” if the individual can fulfill job requirements.
In practice, many servicemembers claim the diagnosis was applied unfairly and used as a pretext to discharge them swiftly – especially when they showed signs of PTSD, depression, or other mental health issues linked to military service. In many of those 31,000 discharges, there was little record of proper counseling, treatment plans, or procedural safeguards. In an internal review of PD cases in 2008-09, less than 10% were processed in full compliance with the regulation.
Aggravation Vs. The PD Carve-Out
Under VA law, pre-existing conditions can be service-related if service aggravates them, but PD is the outlier. VA regulations state “congenital or developmental defects...personality disorders and mental deficiency are not diseases or injuries” for compensation purposes, so they generally cannot be service-connected – even by aggravation. That treatment appears explicitly in 38 C.F.R. § 3.303(c) and VA adjudication guidance, which tell raters to treat PD as pre-service and non-compensable unless there is a separate, superimposed, service-connected mental illness to rate.
What DoD Actually Requires to Separate For PD
DoD’s current enlisted-separations rule (DoDI 1332.14) allows PD separations only with specific safeguards: a diagnosis by an authorized mental health provider, written counseling to the member, and, for those who served in imminent-danger pay areas, corroboration by a peer-or-higher mental health professional and endorsement by the service Surgeon General before separation proceeds. These requirements were tightened in recent updates because of past misuse.
Controversies and Legal Challenges
One thorny issue is that PD discharges deny veterans access to disability benefits and VA health care. Because PD is treated as a pre-existing, non-service-connected condition, symptoms tied to it are typically excluded from compensation. If a servicemember develops PTSD or TBI superimposed on a PD diagnosis, disentangling what is “service-connected” from what is “personality disorder” becomes a battleground.
Congressional oversight has probed the PD discharge system. A 2008 Government Accountability Office audit reported inconsistent compliance and told DoD to monitor the services more closely; DoD agreed in part. In a 2010 House hearing, the military was questioned about thousands of PD separations and whether many were improper or discriminatory, especially for those whose service should have disqualified them only for conditions caused by service-related, non-pre-existing traits. A later DoD Inspector General review (2016) focused on members who reported sexual assault and found widespread non-compliance with the separation rules for non-disability mental conditions (the bucket PD falls into), concluding many packets lacked the required steps.
Reform Attempts And Barriers
After media exposure and pressure, the services revamped their PD separation protocols in the late 2000s. The procedural changes included more counseling, medical evaluation, and documentation before a discharge could proceed. That contributed to the 31% decline in PD separations. Still, critics argue that many discharges remain under-documented, rubber-stamped, or based on biased psychiatric assessments.
One reform challenge is the definition: if PD is treated as pre-existing, then the military and VA argue they cannot legally treat it as a service-connected, or even service-aggravated impairment. The legal barrier means that even with better procedures, the separation still cuts off rights. Moreover, veterans discharged for PD often have to apply for upgrades or challenge the narrative codes on their DD-214 to access benefits.
Broader Stakes
The usage of PD discharge also intersects with gender and sexual trauma issues. Women have been disproportionately discharged under PD diagnoses in some branches: for example, although women make up ~17% of personnel, they represented about 26% of PD discharges. Advocates argue that in some cases, PD diagnoses have been used as a tool to sideline survivors of military sexual trauma, mischaracterizing trauma reactions as “character flaws.”
In the post-service world, those discharged under PD face steep barriers: lack of VA care, stigma, reduced employment prospects, and a “bad paper” record. Studies on nonroutine discharges show increase mental health burdens and higher suicidality among veterans with character-based separations versus those with honorable ones.
For veterans, the stakes of a PD discharge go far beyond paperwork. A single line on a DD-214 can mean the difference between a lifetime of care of being shut out of the VA system altogether. That’s why advocates continue to press for stricter oversight and clearer protections, warning that until the rules change, servicemembers risk being branded with a diagnosis that leaves them without benefits, recognition, or the support they were promised.
