Army reviews some Mustangs’ forced separations
The Army reviewed 19,000 commissioned offers for separation to meet goals for their reduction in force. Initially, they only considered the commissioned service which meant many “mustangs”, or officers with enlisted service, were at a disadvantage in that review. The Stars & Stripes reports that the Army has reviewed that practice and as a result 44 mustangs careers as officers have been salvaged from that wreck;
As a result, 44 officers with prior enlisted service were selected for early retirement even though they did not meet the minimum commissioned service threshold, the Army said. Those separations have been voided and the officers now have the option of remaining in the Army until they have completed the necessary years of service to retire as an officer.
“These soldiers have served their country honorably both as enlisted soldiers, and now, as officers,” McHugh said. “We owe them nothing less.”
In addition, McHugh waived the eight-year requirement to allow another 120 soldiers reviewed by separation boards to retire as officers upon their mandatory retirement date.
“Once again, this is about doing what’s right, and taking care of our men and women in uniform,” McHugh said.
If this is true, I’m glad that the Army has done this one thing right, but you folks have a better sense of the process than me.
Category: Big Army
They saved a few at the expense of many others. How about all the officers they gave pink slips to while they were deployed? No ability to fight back and spend time appealing it because they were deployed. Plus, for the QMP/QSP process for NCOs, I’ve heard that last year’s QMP board was pretty harsh. “well, we need to cut the numbers, so oh well.” Not even allowing them to get to retirement. I know of one case where an NCO is within the “sanctuary” timeline, but they don’t care he’s getting cut anyway, before he hits 20. I passed along that he needs to talk to his Congressman and Senator ASAP about that. Plus there are those that are 15+ years but less than 20 being QMP’d without chance for retirement because of even one bad NCOER. NCOs who are QSP’d can “request” early retirement, but not if they are QMP’d. MOSs with critical shortages are even getting QSP/QMP’d without common sense being applied. After over a decade of not doing QMP/QSP boards, you’d think they would’ve waited at least a year to do the process justly and correctly, but they’re just in a hurry to make the cuts. As I see it, Mother Army says we need to make cuts and echelons above reality are going into cutting mode without concern for extenuating circumstances, without concern for situation, nor without concern for taking care of Soldiers. (And yes, HRC is very much an “echelon above reality” as I see it.) This might be a small victory, but it shouldn’t take 14? Senators as well as Congressmen getting involved to get the Army to stop and apply common sense. The fact that politicians need to tell the Army “hey, what happened to taking care of Soldiers?” after the last 6 years of BS is fairly disturbing. It all goes back to when you tell the military to cut the budget, “personnel” is always the quickest and easiest target. And its not going to be Flag Officers and their E-9s, its going to be company grade officers and NCOs. Then… Read more »
“If this is true, I’m glad that the Army has done this one thing right,”
Yes, now if they will keep doing the same by an increased order of magnitude, we may be able to retain a viable fighting force.
“Yes, now if they will keep doing the same by an increased order of magnitude, we may be able to retain a viable fighting force.”
– Sparks
That may be viewed as contrary to Commander’s Intent.
No, they’ll cut out the lean meat, leave in the fat, drive motivated people into the civilian world and when the next conflict comes along they’ll screw up and cluster-fuck it and pay in blood to learn the same lessons that have been learned over and over again.
You know, like we’ve done in pretty much every conflict since, say, 1775 or so. 😉