cargo hopeful

As far as involuntary separation, does this mean that after 6 years or less than 20 years of serving, the active duty air force can let anyone go for any reasonable reason they can come up with? Is this true or am I a little misinformed? If my assumption is correct, then how frequent does this involuntary separation occur? Are you given a choice to accept it or is it forced unto you?

What about the guard or reserve, does the same hold true for them as well?

SJF15E

There are several types of involuntary separation. Basically, this is anytime you don't put in your papers after your term of active duty or your enlistment is up. It could be for a myriad of reasons such as: conduct, medical disqualification, and the crowd favorite....force reduction (usually limited to certain career fields). Understand that the intitial enlistment period of 6 years has no bearing whatsoever on whether you get put on the street, especially if it is for conduct or medical.

About three years ago, the Air Force did some force reduction and decided to give some Lt's thier walking papers. It was based on what career field they were in (no pilots or navs I believe) and how they were rated by thier commanders. I think the people selected for this are given some sort of pay or severance as they leave to somewhat compensate them.

The year after they reduced all those Lt's they wanted to reduce some more but in a larger range of career fields and ranks so this time they offerred a VSP or Voluntary Separation Program. It allowed people to volunteer for separation for a bonus payment that was based on their rank and time in service. It was pretty effective, but not everyone who volunteered for this was granted the separation which can make for a sticky situation with your commander come time for that next assigment, promotion, or awards package.

The bottomline is that the needs of the military service you are in always come first. However also understand that involuntary force reduction doesn't happen all that often, at least not in the Air Force. I think that last time the Air Force reduced previous to these recent reductions was post Desert Storm in the early 90's.

I don't know about the Guard/Reserve except to say that unless the unit has been affected by the latest BRACC (Base Realignment and Closure Committee) then you probably won't have any problems (unless its conduct or medical, then you will always have problems).

1Seat 1Engine

Regular officers cannot be let go in a RIF (reduction in force). Only Reserve officers can.

Academy grads and ROTC DG's are given regular commisions. The rest are Reserve commisions. Usually after 5 or so years, your regular comission will be upgraded to regular.

rickair7777

Involuntary Sep is different for officers vs. enlisted...

For an enlisted person, they don't really have to "seperate" you, when your enlistment expires, you're done. Whether or not they allow you to re-enlist depends on their needs. In recent memory the navy at least has required junior enlisted to actually apply and be screened for their first re-enlistment.

For officers, your commission is technically supposed to be harder to remove. They can obviously do it for misconduct or obvious unsuitability, and the modern military also has well established time-in-grade limits. The time-in-grade limit means that you can only serve X number of years of commissioned service based on your rank. Typically it is...

O1-03: 12 years
O4: 20 Years
O5: 24-28 Years
O6: 30 Years
Flag: > 30

The key point here is that you need to get promoted three times to reach O4 in order to serve 20 years and get a retirement (that's why O4's tend to be more outspoken...the boss can't cancel their pension). An O3 who fails to select for O4 will get the boot well prior to retirement. Enlisted have similar time-in-grade limits, and you normally need to make E5 to reach 20.

Normally the the military thins the officer ranks through voluntary attrition and time-in-grade limits. If they need more reduction, they usually do some sort of due-process where a board decides who to boot. It works exactly like a promotion board except the focus is on the bottom performers.

If you have less than six years service, you can (and probably will) get invol sep without any compensation. If you have 6+ years, they usually have to pay you some lump sum. If you have 18 years, they have to let you stay in to reach 20.

The best way to avoid this is to perform well and get promoted.

rickair7777

Actually regular officers were booted in the early 90's, although we all thought that could not happen. It was clinton's idea, and I think some of them sued the government.

I'm also 99% certain that academy grads are no longer given regular commissions...they have to augment like everyone else. This changed about ten years ago. Not sure about ROTC, but I assume they are in the same boat.

Starlifter

This is true. The regular officer rule changed many years ago. Actually it changed soon after the last RIF which was about 92'. Now I quite sure guys with a Reg Commission are not protected from a RIF. As far as I remember, in the 92' RIF, only Reserve officers were selected for RIF. I remember many of the Reg officers thanking their lucky stars as they walked around Travis.

Lifter

Spongebob

A couple points from my Admin O' days...

1. Anyone can get RIF'd. The difference is if you're reserve and you resign, they have to approve it unless there is a stop loss or another technicality (like dropping your letter before/after 9-12 months out). If you are a regular officer, they can say "no" to your resignation without a reason.

2. If you are RIF'd, they have to pay severance to a regular duty officer, but not to a reserve officer since even if they're full time, they are still "temporary". If you FOS, you still get severance either way.

2a. Policy has been, since 1994 or so (the last RIF, where they looked at reserve officers exclusively), to treat regular and reserver officers the same.

3. High Year tenure for an O-4 is 18 yrs. Depending on the mood, they'll either automatically give you a waiver to get to 20 or they'll make you request a waiver. They burned a bunch of dudes a couple years ago when they changed policy to "request" from "automatic" and guys got their walking papers 2 yrs short as a reward for not watching the message traffic. So, O-4 = 20 is not a sure thing.

HTH
Spongebob

sigtauenus

Spongebob, agree with everything and want to just add to number 3.

Getting to 18 years as an O-4 buys you 20 according to Title 10. However, in the past, that was when guys were usually getting looked at for the second time for O-5. These days guys are being looked at for O-5 at the 15-16 year mark, which means they could see the second pass as early as the 16-17 year mark.

So in the past it was coincidence that the board results matched up with title 10 and O-4 got you retirement, these days it isn't always the case. Guys may have been burned, but according to Title 10, the only guarantee for retirement is hitting the 18 year mark, not the promotion to O-4.

Right now, at least in the Marine Corps, consider it a "gentleman's agreement" that O-4's are allowed to stay for 20. It can change instantly at the whim of the Commandant, just like changing from green t-shrits to tan and back to green.

Starlifter

In addition to number 3, in the USAF for rated officers HYT for an 0-4 was 24. This also may be a gentlemans agreement but I dealt with the often on AD and now in the AF Reserves and we still have folks to going to 24yrs.

rickair7777

Somebody needs to get their teeth kicked in for that.