Navy / Army RIF?

[aglages]

I often hear about the Air Force going through a Reduction In Force, but never about the Navy or Army reducing it's numbers of officers / enlisted personnel. Are they immune from the occasional purges that seem to effect the AF or do we just not hear about them?

 

[bruno]

I often hear about the Air Force going through a Reduction In Force, but never about the Navy or Army reducing it's numbers of officers / enlisted personnel. Are they immune from the occasional purges that seem to effect the AF or do we just not hear about them?

The Army typically is the biggest loser in most RIFs. Under Clinton they riffed about 300,000 guys down to an AD force of around 480,000. You might have noticed that we are fighting a primarily Ground war- and the Army has a result been expanded by about 100,000 over the last 6 years (It took Rumsfeld about 4 years to see the obvious and actually agree to work with Congress to increase the size of the Army and the USMC to support the force requirements. ) Undoubtedly you will read about Army RIFs about a year after they pullout most of the forces out of Afghanistan & Iraq.

 

[Pima]

I agree, if the Army RIFs it will be after the drawdown. I remember back in the 90's when the AF did their RIF. As soon as they were done the Army announced their RIF. This was about a yr later than the AF. The reason for the time difference was easy to see. The AF finished their missions earlier than the Army, just as Bruno is stating. I will say the Army might not need a RIF because their personnel might be leaving at a faster pace than the AF. You can always tell when a RIF is becoming a reality. They usually will SERB first, then they speed up promotion boards while at the same time lower the promotion rate, finally they put in place the RIF for specific targeted yrs and fields. At least that is how I have seen work over the past 20 yrs.

Remember there is a mandate % of Flag to Field to Company, thus when one is off in numbers they have limited ways to correct without doing a RIF.

 

[Zaphod]

The Navy goes through theirs, too. It went through one while I was in. I had classmates get out with less than two years of their commitment completed.

Like a dummy, it never occurred to me.