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View Full Version : Military can retire at 15 years???



Richard Simmons
07-11-2012, 04:48 PM
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/11/virginia-lawmaker-in-battle-with-navy-over-early-retirement-benefits-for/


The above link is the first I've heard of this policy. If I read it correctly it only applies if your being involuntarily seperated, true? I guess I'm a little conflicted. If you chose a rating and that rating becomes overmanned and or you're are not a high achiever and the military decides it either no longer needs your service why are we as taxpayers doling out up to $9000,000 in retirement pay because a servicemember had 15 years service? Especially if they are afforded the opportunity to cross rate?

I remember back in the early to mid 80's before I EAOS'ed they were looking at ratings like MS (cooks)which had a large number of Filipinos, many of whom didn't want to leave duty stations on the west coast. At that time if you had been an E6 or maybe even E7 for say, 6-8 years and hadn't advanced they were not approving reinlistments. If at the time of your EAOS, if you had 20+ you could put in your papers. If not, you just became a civilian.

We had an OS2 on my last ship who had something like 12 years in. He'd been an E5 for something like 6-7 of those 12. He didn't want the responsibility of an E6 but wanted to do his 20 and retire. As soon as they started the "fat boy" testing they got rid of him.

ltorlo64
07-11-2012, 07:20 PM
They haven't decided on this yet. The issue is something called an Enlisted Retention Board (ERB) and its ability to send sailors, who the board decided did not have adequate potential to advance, home before their EAOS. There are is another program called Perform-To-Serve (PTS) that looks at sailors who are coming up on re-enlistments and gives them three choices based on the manning of their ratings; 1. You can re-enlist in your rating, 2. You can re-enlist, but you have to change rating (and the Navy tells you what they will allow you to cross-rate to), 3. You cannot re-enlist.

PTS is done by looking at your performance and manning levels of your rating. ERBs looked soley at whether they felt the sailor had any chance or motivation to advance. If the ERB felt the sailor did not, the sailor was given about 6 months to prepare for discharge. There was no appealing their decision, it was final. In most cases, the ERB did a good job and are getting rid of the sailors like the OS2 that you mention. In a very few cases, which are being used to say the whole program was broken, the board made decisions which didn't seem to make sense. We lost a Chief with 13 years in. He made Chief quickly, but at his last command he was limited duty due to an injury so he did not get very good fitness reports. He got better and went back to sea and was doing quite well, one of the best Chiefs on the ship, but the ERB did not have any fitness reports from us as they had not been submitted yet. He was notified in January and was discharged in April.

This bill that you mention is trying to "protect" people who were within 5 years of retirement from being discharged with nothing. I am torn on this. I think it sucks when someone gets out after 10+ years with no retirement. I also know that this is not a secret and the military is open about people needing to do certain things to be considered a "satisfactory" sailor. The vast majority of the people selected by the ERB were not satisfactory, but they did not do anything that allowed their supervisors to give them an RE-R4 re-enlistment code (not allowed to re-enlist).

Anyway, that is what this is all about.

bill may
06-25-2013, 08:57 PM
i did 21 yrs 10 days just to be sure i was in the groove.