Arthur C. Schmid, Jr. v. The United States

I think § 687 is ambiguous by reason of the words “* * * who has completed, immediately before his release, at least five years of continuous active duty * * This I read as saying that anything under five years is not enough. It is seemingly contradicted by subsection (2.) as Judge Collins quotes it. If two parts of a statute can be read as not contradicting one another, that reading is to be preferred, but such a reading is difficult here. I agree that the legislative history looks both ways and the Navy practice is not of long enough standing to control, nor are we *992shown what the other…