Air Force wants more from 2nd-chance program

[unhappycamper]

Air Force wants more from 2nd-chance program
By Erik Holmes - Staff writer
Posted : Monday May 12, 2008 6:32:07 EDT

In little more than a year, Senior Airman Reginald Patterson went from running the base airmen’s council at Hurlburt Field, Fla., to serving time in the brig at Charleston Air Force Base, S.C.

It was a precipitous fall for a young airman whose career had been on the fast track before he was convicted of travel voucher fraud in 2003.

He served six months of a 12-month prison sentence. But while awaiting his final discharge, Patterson rediscovered his desire to put on his Air Force uniform every day and serve in the military.

“There was just something that I felt like I was missing,” he said. “I just felt like I wasn’t going to let one decision that I made basically write the script for the rest of my life.”

Patterson applied to the Return to Duty program, a three- to six-month, boot camp-like program that gives a select few airmen convicted of minor crimes — but whose records are otherwise solid — a second chance. The program includes lots of discipline and PT, but also drug and alcohol counseling, anger management classes and other therapy, if those are appropriate.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/05/airforce_second_chance_051108/