Introduction

Military discipline is a term that covers many administrative actions. At its most informal and unstructured level, the term can refer to such actions as extra duty, extra instruction, short-term confi nement, counseling, and similar responses. At the other extreme, military members can be sent to prison for terms up to life for serious felonies such as murder and even receive the death penalty. Somewhere in the middle of this dimension lies the domain of the non-judicial punishment, a series of actions in response to less than felony offenses, but more than simple errors of omission or commission.