Xerodin

Forcing people out of the military for a policy that wasn’t around when they joined gives the service member some leeway. There’s usually a period of voluntary separation where they can opt in to receive a severance pay and streamline the process. If the service member doesn’t opt for voluntary separation, they are involuntarily separated. This involves a little more paperwork, a longer process, and half the severance pay of a voluntary separation. In both cases it’s an honorable discharge (unless there’s something else criminal at play) and they keep all benefits and entitlements.

I’m more familiar with Navy regulations, but here’s an example from the DEI rollback from March (TW for the shitty title of the message).

Paragraph 5 stipulates the terms of voluntary separation. More specifically:

b. Any remaining military service obligation will be waived for members requesting voluntary separation; any bonus received prior to 26 February 2025 and subject to a service obligation will not be recouped. Absent any other basis for separation or disenrollment, USNA and NROTC midshipmen will not be subject to monetary repayment of education benefits.

d. Characterization of service will be honorable except where the member’s record otherwise warrants a different characterization. The applicable separation program designator codes and associated narrative reasons for separation will be provided at a later date by an appropriate official of the Office of the ASN(M&RA) in coordination with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

e. For military personnel requesting voluntary separation and eligible for voluntary separation pay in accordance with references (h) and (i), CNO and CMC will authorize voluntary separation pay at a rate that is twice the amount of involuntary separation pay for which the member would have been eligible in accordance with reference (j). Voluntary separation pay is not payable to those with less than six years or more than 20 years of service. No member receiving Voluntary Separation Pay in accordance with this ALNAV will be required to serve in the Ready Reserve.

f. CNO and CMC are authorized Temporary Early Retirement Authority for members with over 18 but less than 20 years of total active-duty service eligible per reference (k) and separated in accordance with this ALNAV.

If you have friends, family, or acquaintance who are US military members, please use this information and opportunity to educate, agitate, and organize. Some of these people are about to lose their stability and routine, and it’s important to direct their frustration and blame at the racist policies of this administration, linking it to other intersectionalities, and building camaraderie.

Imperial/metric flame war! Fuck it, let’s get even more pedantic and go back to using decimal time. 10 hours a day, 100 minutes an hour, and 100 seconds a minute, all altered in duration to fit into their superlative hierarchical tier. A day would then be 100000 decimal seconds. Does that make the metric powers of 10 part of your brain happy?

/s for fake passive-aggression. I’m not actually upset, your comment just reminded me of decimal time.

On a related note, 60 (seconds per minute, minutes per hour) is a cool number because it’s divisible by so many factors: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, and 60. It’s because 60 is divisible by so many numbers that we can have increments of an hour be in while numbers of minutes without decimals. A quarter hour is 15 minutes. A third is 20 minutes. One tenth is 6 minutes. Base 60 seconds and minutes are flexible and convenient.

Anyways, that’s enough late night rambling. Enjoy your day, internet stranger.