If a service member wishes to cancel their contract early, should they be allowed to?

The U.S. Government and the individual enter into a mutually binding contract. Unless the service member, somehow, becomes unable (NOT unwilling) to uphold their end of the agreement, the answer is a resounding "NO."

No. I understand what you're saying and personally I'd happily be rid of some of them as well, but the contract has a duration for a reason, and a very large part of that is personnel and manning planning. If we allow people to leave early we lose all of the predictability of that process and there are significant compounding effects.

No.

One thing that makes the military different from civilian employers is that you cannot just quit when you want to. This is essentially what canceling a contract means. It is up to the leadership to make sure that all unit members are doing their job and I know the Army has ways to chapter out Soldiers who are sub-standard. But we cannot effectively have a military if people can just quit when they want.

Simply put, the government has a huge investment. It takes A LOT of time to make a servicemember viable. About a year to get someone to the "Fleet" The 3 years after that are a fairly reasonable payback for that education. Especially since the vast majority of us choose our specialties. In addition, we get a lot of benefits post service.

It's not about being unhappy. It's about paying back that investment.

Those folks that want out early should not have joined in the first place, but thats just me. But, since they are in, they are gonna have to ride their time out and then get out. Sucks to be them but maybe next time they will put a little more thought than "Call of Duty in real life...super sweet" mentality.

No. If you sign on the dotted line you have an obligation to complete your commitment

A1C Fox, I think you summed it up very well.. Bringing bad moral to an entire unit, and it can be very toxic... obvious this has happened to Congress, as well as the VA..

I’d say it would depend on the reasons. And I have first hand experience with this. I was in the Army on my second enlistment when I requested an “early out” to enter the college semester. I was a SGT/E5 at Fort Meade, Maryland, 1985, and had declined orders for overseas back to Germany. I had about 8 months left on my enlistment and knew I was getting out. In retrospect I probably should have gone back overseas as I had orders to Bad Aibling. Beautiful place to be assigned. I submitted the necessary paperwork with recommendations to reject my request. I had included acceptance letters from the school I was going to attend. But. When my request got to the approving authority, my request was approved.
The day after my discharge January 15, 1986, I enlisted in the Air National Guard, as I did not want a break in service. I had every intention of serving for 20 years and get retirement. Plus going to a USAF school in satellite communications was a goal of mine.
If you’re a good soldier, airman, sailor, Marine, or coastie, and a good record, anything is possible if you go through the right channels.
Bad morale in my unit? Nope. Negative attitudes? Never happened. Maybe it was because I was in Military Intelligence and we were expected to advance our education. Maybe I was just lucky.

When I was 18 and first in the military this was me. I am SO glad that the Air Force made it difficult to do this, if not almost impossible. You don't know what you want when you are young and in the military, you just know that you are lonely, away from home, and that all your friends are having lots of fun back home without you. After 4 years you will see things MUCH differently. Change happens. The military just forces it a little earlier than college does. But the benefits you get, especially the GI Bill and Veteran status, are incalculably more beneficial than a couple extra years as a child