I got out of the USAF nearly 27 years ago so things may be different now; however, back when I was serving on active duty, your commanding officer had a lot of power to make the final determination. For example, a Technical Sergeant in a squadron hit a Japanese civilian head on and killed the civilian (though it was still terrible, at least the person killed was in his 80s, interestingly, the family expected the tech sergeant to attend the funeral and were very forgiving and even showed a lot of concern for his health). The guidelines then were that the Air Force kept him on active duty so that he could make amends with the family he effected and stabilize physically then the commander was supposed to discharge the tech sergeant with a general or dishonorable discharge. The commanding officer (a major) worried about how the tech sergeant would take care of his family once discharged so he argued that a fine taking and taking away a stripe was sufficient. It would have been easier for the commander to discharge the staff sergeant but because he cared and argued that the staff sergeant had been otherwise excellent at his job and could still be able to serve once he healed, the commander successfully kept this individual on active duty. Back then (and maybe still), commanders had a lot of leaway to decide the fate of the people who served under them. If this is still true today, then your husband's fate is dependent upon the people in his chain of command--especially the commander in that chain. It also depends on the needs of the AF and if your husband did a good job in the past. I hope this explanation helps. Sorry you are both going through this. .