A recently implemented Army policy has been forcing a significant number of captains and majors who are former non-commissioned officers to retire at their highest previous enlisted rank, causing a significant decrease in lifetime retirement benefits
Following calls for action from Klobuchar and a bipartisan coalition of senators, the Army recently announced that it has reversed this policy in order to ensure soldiers can retire at the rank they earned and to appropriately honor their service
WASHINGTON, D.C. — After a push from U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), the U.S. Army has announced that it is taking action to ensure military retirees receive the benefits they deserve. A recently implemented Army policy has been forcing a significant number of captains and majors who are former non-commissioned officers to retire at their highest previous enlisted rank, causing a significant decrease in lifetime retirement benefits. Following calls for action from Klobuchar and a bipartisan coalition of senators, the Army recently announced that it has reversed this policy in order to ensure soldiers can retire at the rank they earned and to appropriately honor their service.
“Our servicememen and women put their lives on the line to keep us safe, and they deserve to know we have their backs when they come home,” Klobuchar said. “This misguided policy was needlessly stripping some of our military retirees of the benefits they’d earned, and I’m pleased that the Army has reversed course and heeded our calls for action to ensure these servicemembers receive benefits that are worthy of their service.”
Under the Army’s policy, officers selected by the Enhanced-Selective Early Retirement Boards were forced to retire as soon as they reach 20 years of service. However, a soldier must have serve at least eight years of active service as a commissioned officer in order to retire at that rank. This means officers who were forced to retire before they have served in the position for eight years were demoted upon retirement to their highest previous enlisted rank and received the corresponding benefits.
The full text of the senators’ original letter is available below:
Dear Secretary McHugh:
We write to express our grave concern over the Army’s treatment of a significant number of Army captains and majors who are former non-commissioned officers. These former non-commissioned officers answered the Army’s call for volunteers to attend Officer Candidate School as the Army expanded its officer corps to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, despite having served for years as commissioned officers and rising through the ranks to become captains and majors, these dedicated soldiers will soon be forced to retire at their highest previous enlisted rank. This will result in a significant decrease in lifetime retirement benefits for the impacted soldiers, approximately $1,000 per month or just over $1 million over a 40 year retirement in the case of a captain forced to retire as a sergeant first class. This is simply unacceptable.
These former non-commissioned officers have been placed in this untenable position as a result of the Army’s use of Enhanced-Selective Early Retirement Boards (E-SERB). Officers selected by the boards are forced to retire as soon as they reach 20 years of service. Unfortunately, under current law a soldier must serve at least 8 years of active service as a commissioned officer in order to retire as a commissioned officer. Soldiers who serve 20 years total, but less than 8 years as commissioned officers are retired at their highest enlisted rank. While this requirement makes sense in the case of soldiers who choose to retire, are passed over for multiple promotions, or are forced to retire due to misconduct, none of those cases applies to the soldiers in question. On the contrary, Army Human Resources Command has explicitly acknowledged that E-SERB will separate fully qualified officers “who have rendered quality service to the nation.” To demote these soldiers in retirement is an injustice that devalues their service and will materially disadvantage them and their families for the rest of their lives.
Rather than forcing these officers to retire as soon as they reach 20 years of service, the Army could modify its E-SERB policy to delay the mandatory retirement date of affected soldiers until the first month after they become eligible to retire as commissioned officers. For many of the affected soldiers this would extend their time in service by only a few months. We strongly urge you to take the necessary steps to rectify this situation in order to allow these soldiers to retire at the rank they have earned and appropriately honor their service to our nation.
Sincerely,
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