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At the time your Navy officer work friends were correct. However, they changed the rules later and all naval officers reserve or otherwise who get passed over 3 times for promotion are now automatically discharged.

On my first command may CO automatically admin separated any sailor with 3 or more NJPs and requested an Other Than Honorable discharge be attributed. It’s not a BCD or DD but is still considered a black mark. I talked him down from doing this with one sailor who got drunk celebrating his last weekend before separation.

This guy likely made PFC at some point, since that is basically only a time in rate thing, so his last infraction was likely very close to his final discharge. I’m guessing they didn’t bother with the administrative paperwork since it was the 70s and they weren’t going to re-up him anyway. So it was likely an Honorable despite his NJPs.

Myself I left active after a little over 5 years, but still had a mandatory 3 years of inactive reserves...I started drilling again before that time was up, but it was too late and after a little over a year my last chance at 0-4 came and went before I could manage to accomplish anything to impress the promotion boards. It was less than 6 months before 9/11 which created a stop loss across the board.

There are times I deeply regret getting out and other times when I know I made the right choice.