Fraudulent Enlistment, General Discharge and Claim for Arrears of Pay and Allowances

A Navy member requested reconsideration of the disallowance of his claim for arrears of pay and allowances which he believed due as the result of a change in the type of discharge he received from the Navy in 1969. The claimant received a general discharge due to his fraudulent enlistment and was not entitled to receive accrued pay and allowances. Because the basis of withholding pay and allowances was that the enlistment was fraudulent and not that the discharge was less than honorable, the upgrading of the discharge to honorable by the Navy Discharge Review Board without altering the fact that the enlistment was fraudulent does not entitle the claimant to receive the accruded pay and allowances. A military member's claim for pay and allowances accrues upon discharge and must be filed with GAO within the time specified by legislation or be forever barred from consideration. A claim for Korean conflit era mustering-out pay must have been filed with the Secretary of the service concerned before July 17, 1959, to be paid. There was no evidence of such a filing; therefore, the claim for such pay may not be paid.