You likely 'were honourable' but you allowed
yourself to 'appear dishonorable' in a position where it was
important to avoid that.

After the event, I heard some variation of that from everyone, but I made a
rotten choice and had to pay the piper. Was what I did honorable? No. Took
me a decade to accept that. I was the Wing Sailor of the Year at the time,
paraded around California as the new Navy poster child. There really wasn't any
room for a mistake on my part. Years after the admin board, officers that I
flew with came up to me at my new work and told me how screwed up the whole
thing was, or to ask who I had ****ed off so royally to earn what happened to
me. It all boiled down to bad timing and a bad decision years earlier. I lose
sleep over it occasionally, but now I think its just an old habit, wondering
what I could have done differently.

So, yes, your council should have seen
this possibility and steered you clear of it.

At the time of the event, my counsel was six months out of college and was
handed my case several hours before we met the board. Bad luck there, but
ancient history now. For all I know, in the 15 years that followed, she may
have learned her job quite well.

v/r
Gordon