Wow, has this been a really busy week! Due to the budget restraints, the Air Force is going thru some major reduction in forces. I attended two town hall meetings at RAF Mildenhall yesterday, they have approximately 200 service members that are going to possibly be affected by the RIF. Service members are all trying to get things together and determine their VA benefits in order to plan for the future. It is really sad, many of these service members have between 10-15 years of service, they certainly planned on making a career out to their military service. Things are happening quick too, many of them will be released from active duty by May 31st.
I met with a young Airman today that had enlisted for six years, on May 31st, he will only have about 30 months of active duty. He came to me to find out exactly how this will impact his education benefits. Because he has not had at least 36 months of service, this will have an impact, so I will be spending some time this weekend studying the GI Bill website just to make sure I am up to date on everything!
My previous briefings have had between 10 - 20 service members in attendance. I know that my next briefing at Mildenhall, on March 21st, already has 32 people signed up. I am sure that number will be growing!
My briefing today had a Staff Sergeant that has been approved for retirement. His wife has moved and all household belonging and car have already been shipped back to California, he is scheduled to fly out Monday morning. But, he was informed yesterday that he has been promoted to Master Sergeant, if he accepts the promotion, he has to serve two more years. That would be really hard to be completely in retirement mode and find out that you have two more years to work. Of course he doesn't have to accept the promotion, but when we were discussing the monetary benefits over the next two years and what the additional earning will do to his monthly retirement, it would be really hard not to accept the promotion. He and his wife have some major decisions to make this weekend! He was so funny, he has already filed for VA disability compensation and already had his examination. He asked me how staying on active duty for two more years would effect his disability compensation, I explained that it wouldn't really make any difference as long as he still has the disabilities when he retires. He was really disappointed, he said he wanted me to tell him that it would make a major difference, that way he would have know that he needs to go ahead with the retirement. I laughed and told him that he should have known that I wouldn't make things that easy for him!
I don't have any plans for tomorrow, so I will be posting about my trip to Dublin.
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