I'm not sure where to put this, first post. I just need a couple of ideas... I'm sure I could work it out myself eventually but my brain is currently fried so any help would be appreciated! The first section of my story involves the main female character being recruited into the FBI from an area that the FBI are working together with on a case, but she has to get in trouble at her old job and be fired/quit. I was thinking maybe the CIA, but I would prefer her to be working with the army first up. So here I have two options. I have to find an area for her to be working in with/closely around the army, and hopefully something that allowed her to train fully in shooting, but that would allow her to just leave or be fired without a heap of hassle or a court martial or anything. Alternatively, I need to find a way for her to be IN the army and then be discharged due to injury or PTSD that would not affect her joining the FBI as a field agent (seems like a long shot) OR dishonourably discharged for something, but not something that reflects badly on her character...
If she quit on account of sexual harassment, would that be valid? That way, she isn't injured, so to speak, and hasn't had any major harm done to her character. She has every reason then to be fully trained, and she should be able to leave without a huge amount of hassle.
There are a million possibilities for you to consider, from being in the army, to knowing people in the army. I don't know much about the requirements to become an FBI agent, and what will affect that. Maybe you can find some means of finding out the job requirements? Something else to consider is that anyone can learn to shoot now-a-days by taking a hunting/self defense class.
You can't quit from the Army over a case of sexual harrassment. In that situation, assuming she came forward and assuming they followed it up - the other person involved would be the one in trouble. There are very few reasons that you can choose to leave the military - one of them involves being a single parent but it is complicated and doesn't sound like where you want you lead to go. There is a hardship separation in Chapter Six of the link below that you might be able to take advantage of but you will need to come up with a suitable backstory that fits the discharge requirements. Since she has been with the Army long enough to learn so much, I think we can assume she has been in long enought to qualify for an honorable discharge. Anyways .... here is the link to the Army separations manual. http://www.apd.army.mil/pdffiles/r635_200.pdf
