New retention guidelines announced as part of Army drawdown

The Army, like any orga­ni­za­tion, must react and adapt itself accord­ing to chang­ing out­side con­di­tions. We are now enter­ing a part of the cycli­cal lifes­pan of the U.S. mil­i­tary called a draw­down. What does this mean to Soldiers? Simply put, if you have com­mit­ted an unfor­giv­able sin such as: DUI, drug use, lying, cheat­ing, or steal­ing you will have to work very hard to be retained.

New Army reten­tion guidelines

The Army has laid out a series of new reten­tion rules effec­tive 1 March 2012. Soldiers who have a poor eval­u­a­tion report on file will not be eli­gi­ble to reen­list. What does poor mean? Here’s a list of all the symp­toms of a poor NCOER:

• NO entry in the val­ues section
• Senior Rater rat­ing of 4 or 5
• Relief for cause report
• Overweight
• APFT fail­ure
• AWOL 96 hours or greater
• Failure of a ser­vice school
• Use of drugs
• Alcohol related inci­dents that resulted in some form of pun­ish­ment or admin­is­tra­tive action like an Article 15 or let­ter of reprimand

How can you sur­vive the drawdown?

If you are barred to ren­lis­te­ment, were involved in a sig­nif­i­cant act of mis­con­duct, or received a poor eval­u­a­tion report chances are you will be fac­ing the pos­si­bil­ity of either denial of reen­list­ment or sep­a­ra­tion from ser­vice. So what can you do?

Find help

Step one: I highly rec­om­mend that you seek legal guid­ance from JAG. Also con­sider the pos­si­bil­ity of request­ing assis­tance from a civil­ian attor­ney who spe­cial­izes in mil­i­tary law. These con­sul­ta­tions tend to be rather inex­pen­sive but the infor­ma­tion you gain may prove price­less if it leads to sav­ing your career.

Request an excep­tion of policy

If you want to fight for your job, you can apply for an excep­tion to pol­icy for reen­list­ment. To do this you need to show your chain of com­mand you have learned from the inci­dent in ques­tion and you are a stel­lar Soldier. Even then you will most likely face dif­fi­culty as the goal is to reen­list only those Soldiers who have shown the abil­ity to per­form to stan­dard through­out their enlist­ment with­out becom­ing involved in misconduct.

Prepare for civil­ian life

If you do not secure an excep­tion of pol­icy, you will need to come to grips with your new real­ity. There is a lot of work to be done before you sep­a­rate out of mil­i­tary ser­vice. Find your sep­a­ra­tion date. If you will not be allowed to reen­list you may have one-one and half years to pre­pare for your ETS. This will allow you to be well pre­pared for tran­si­tion to civil­ian life. JAG and your local REUP NCO can help you iden­tify the ben­e­fits you will be enti­tled to accord­ing to the type of dis­charge you are being sep­a­rated under. Read more about prepar­ing for civil­ian life.

Serve your country

Remember, you must con­tinue to be a pro­fes­sional Soldier. Just because you are mov­ing away from mil­i­tary ser­vice does not mean that you are no longer the per­son you were while on active duty. If you have bumped heads with your chain of com­mand in the past, this is the time to Soldier up and be a pro­fes­sional. Your chain of com­mand can be of great assis­tance in help­ing pro­vide a pos­i­tive envi­ron­ment dur­ing your sep­a­ra­tion experience.

You will likely find that your chain of com­mand has empa­thy for your sit­u­a­tion and wants to do every­thing they can to ease your tran­si­tion. Do not spoil this oppor­tu­nity by being unpro­fes­sional and caus­ing trou­ble. This will only hurt your cause and poten­tially result in a loss of fur­ther benefits.

Keep mov­ing forward

Do not allow your sep­a­ra­tion from ser­vice to color your view of life in a neg­a­tive man­ner. I have served with numer­ous indi­vid­u­als who sim­ply amazed me by grow­ing where they were planted. They made the best of the sit­u­a­tion and achieved great things through pos­i­tive atti­tude, will­ing­ness to learn, and hard work. Separation is not the des­ti­na­tion, it is only a stop on the jour­ney of life. You choose where your final des­ti­na­tion will be… Get involved. Choose it, and work to achieve your goals.

Best of luck in your civil­ian endeav­ors. Thanks for your ser­vice to this nation.

Additional Reading

• “New Army reten­tion stan­dards take effect, more to fol­low” [link]
• Policy Message 12–02: “Reenlistment Options and Window” [link]