Gregg wrote: ↑Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:36 pm
When I was still in, I doubt an junior enlisted man would be charged for adulatory, but Officers and senior NCOs you betcha. I knew of more than one officer who resigned rather than be Court Martialed for it.
I researched this issue a long time ago. It was always my sense that adultery was a tack-on charge, and I wanted to find out how many people were charged with adultery all by itself without any other charges. I can’t recall if the answer was zero, but if it wasn’t zero, it was very, very few.
Anyhoo, there aren’t near as many adultery charges as there used to be. Back in the stone age (before 2011), the fact of the adultery alone was enough for a conviction. It’s one of the “enumerated offenses” under Article 134 of the UCMJ, which punishes conduct “prejudicial to good order and discipline” and conduct “of a nature to bring discredit on the Service.” The CAAF finally got around to reading the text of the statute and held that the government actually has to prove that the conduct was prejudicial to good order and discipline or was service discrediting. Dude or dudette goes out and has an adulterous relationship with a civilian who has absolutely no connection to the military whatsoever probably wouldn’t result in charges these days.
"Hey! We left this England place because it was bogus, and if we don't get some cool rules ourselves, pronto, we'll just be bogus too!" -- Thomas Jefferson