bad paper

noun

Slang.

1. a less-than-honorable discharge from military service.

Example Sentences

“As the 75th anniversary of the desegregation of our military looms” in July 2023, said Richard Brookshire, co-founder of Black Veterans Project, “the devastating legacy of bad paper discharges — proliferating in World War II through the present day, has stripped generations of Black troops of the social and economic benefits of military service.”

Read more on Washington Post

Veterans who receive what are often referred to as “bad paper discharges,” the clinic says, can suffer from a prolonged stigma, often harming their ability to find civilian jobs.

Read more on New York Times

According to the legal clinic at Yale, the Army has discharged about 150,000 soldiers since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks with so-called bad paper discharges like Mr. Kennedy, many of whom showed symptoms of mental health disorders like depression and post-traumatic stress, or suffered from traumatic brain injuries following their combat service.

Read more on New York Times

As anthropologist Kenneth MacLeish points out, military suicides are most prevalent among those who have deployed to our war zones just once or not at all, or who left the military involuntarily with a “bad paper discharge” or other than honorable discharges of some kind.

Read more on Salon

The case is the latest in what many consider a period of reckoning for the military and what are known as “bad paper” discharges, which force separation under less than fully honorable conditions under the military’s interpretation of misconduct or poor performance.

Read more on New York Times