A former soldier who was denied re-enlistment in the U.S. Army is now demanding that the U.S. Army pay him $500,000 to settle the civil complaint he filed in the U.S. District Court for the NMI yesterday.<\/p>\n
Melvin Castro alleges that the U.S. Army imposed \u201cfabricated medical causes\u201d on him and disqualified him from re-enlistment despite being able to pass the minimum performance requirements.<\/p>\n
Castro submitted the civil complaint in forma pauperis, which refers to an instance where a person who is unable to pay court filing fees is allowed to submit their case to a court. <\/p>\n
Castro alleged that the U.S. Army \u201cimposed non-self-inflicted\u201d scars on his left wrist, and implied that the Army disqualified him from re-enlisting due to a fractured finger on his left hand. Castro argues that a \u201cfractured finger is not cause for disqualification.\u201d<\/p>\n
Castro further maintains that despite having a fractured finger, he surpassed minimum scores for physical evaluation tests during his time in service.<\/p>\n
Castro also maintained that the Baker Act stated on his medical examination documents were \u201csubjective.\u201d According to an online definition, the Baker Act is a Florida law that enables families and loved ones to provide emergency mental health services and temporary detention for people who are impaired because of their mental illness, and who are unable to determine their needs for treatment. <\/p>\n
Castro states that he \u201cwas not institutionalized for any mental illnesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Castro participated in a re-entry examination at a military entrance processing station in Portland, Oregon, and was denied re-enlistment. Castro later tried again at the recruiting station on Saipan, and was again denied re-enlistment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A former soldier who was denied re-enlistment in the U.S. Army is now demanding that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":331080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-345305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}