This is STRANGE: Air Force halts voluntary separation pay, 15-year retirements

[MADem]

http://www.airforcetimes.com/article/20140305/CAREERS02/303050031/Air-Force-halts-voluntary-separation-pay-15-year-retirements

The Air Force Personnel Center has halted processing of early retirement and voluntary separation applications for both officers and enlisted.

In a message sent to major commands Tuesday that was obtained by Air Force Times, AFPC said it has delayed processing applications for Temporary Early Retirement Authority and voluntary separation pay “while sustainment requirements for projected force reductions are further reviewed by the Air Force.”

The message said AFPC expects to resume processing the applications “in the near future,” but has not yet set a firm date. AFPC said it will update commands once the review is finished and processing resumes.

AFPC would not comment when reached by Air Force Times, saying “any information on this topic would have to come in an official release.”

Keeping those options open?

[Duckhunter935]

1. Not strange

Too many people were getting out, same happened in the Army in the 90's

[MADem]

2. NO. That is NOT what is happening.

They are still taking applications--they've just put a "hold" on processing them.

From the same article:

Airmen have until March 26 to apply for TERA, and until May 1 to apply for voluntary separation pay. The AFPC message said airmen will still be able to apply for these programs during the pause in processing.

It's like a STOP LOSS. Not the same thing at all.

[TwilightGardener]

3. Well, that's a little unsettling.

[MADem]

4. Yes, I take your meaning. My hope is that it is simply Ye Olde Abundance of Caution.

USAF does play a very strong NATO role; and if we were participating in some sort of joint "No Fly" effort they would get the tap. USN would too, of course, but the location is good for a strong USAF contribution.

What easier way, if something is coming up in the near term, to shift those assets that are being pushed off the A/D rolls and in many cases programmed towards the Reserves to "One Last Assignment," rather than have to cull through their drillers straight away to find the best ones to go. This way, they're sending over top drawer assets from the get-go.

Then, if this were to be an ongoing thing, the training cycle for the drillers could be geared to accommodate this new reality.

I'm speaking strictly in terms of contingencies, of course--I don't "want" to do any of this stuff. We've had enough.

[3catwoman3]

5. I spent 4 years on active duty...

...in the Air Force nurse corps, as a pediatric nurse practitioner. I took care of the kids of service men and women. Later, I spent an additional 8 years as a reservist, most of it as an IMA - Individual Mobilization Augmentee. Sort of like a one-person reserve unit - you do your reserve and active duty at the nearest base, even if there is no attached guard or reserve unit.

Military pediatric clinics are always back-breakingly busy, and the clinics at the 2 bases where my husband was assigned during those 8 years were always delighted to have an extra pair of nurse practitioner hands. The last year I was in, it was suddenly dictated that everyone must have "war readiness skills," and I was no longer permitted to fulfill my commitment in the peds clinic during the annual 2 week active duty requirement. I was assigned to the ER for one of the weeks, and the Aeromedical Staging Flight, which in-processes patients being airlifted back to the states from overseas, for the second. After spending my entire career dealing with ear infections, diaper rashes, and all the other pediatric slings and arrow, you can imagine how useful I was in those 2 urgent settings.

This was about a year and a half before the first Iraq conflict under Bush 1. I was quite certain, looking back, that plans for that were well underway at the time at the time I was no longer permitted to use the clinical skills that had previously been valued. I was pregnant with our first son at that time. I was able to resign my commission after he was born, thru a loophole. Resignations had been frozen, but there was no way I was going to leave my baby.

This announcement reminds me of all of that. Someone is probably planning something.

[MADem]

6. This is definitely a stop loss-ish thing. They're probably figuring out the NATO rotation.

Of course, we know full well that the name of the game is plan for war, pray for peace, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I hope these are plans that will eventually be tabled, and be shoved in a drawer to gather dust.

[riverratrambler]

7. Someone was unprepared

My understanding, as I've had an application sitting around for weeks awaiting approval, is that we don't know what criteria will determine an approved/denied application... and now AFPC is trying to mold the criteria to the huge number of Airmen taking the offer.

So, now they are supposedly going to approve those of us with less time left on our enlistments, and retain those who reenlisted shortly before the program was announced (pay people not to reenlist, apparently).

That might explain why the PSDM says that applications will not be handled on a first come first served basis.

I hope they can hurry, some people will have alot of terminal leave to burn up before 29 Sep and AFPC can take at least eight weeks to make a determination, giving some a month to separate.

[MADem]

8. I hope that is the only consideration, but I have to wonder if they might be

racking the end strength figures up the chain. It'll all shake out soon enough, I'm sure.