The RIF and Force Shaping Boards will not directly impact new accessions. Each AFSC is broken down by year group to determine if they are "overmanned" based on one's Captain Year Group (CYG), e.g., 2009 JAGs, 2010 Civil Engineers, etc. This is to meet new and significantly lower Congressionally mandated end strength numbers for each of the services.maxpayne wrote:I wonder if this will affect selection rates this year for AF JAG hopefuls....
http://www.stripes.com/news/air-force-t ... s-1.267710
"WASHINGTON — The Air Force will convene a force-shaping board July 14 to consider eligible officers for involuntary separation, according to an Air Force Personnel Center memo obtained by Stars and Stripes.
Competitive categories for separation include line of the Air Force (LAF), judge advocate, biomedical sciences corps, dental corps, medical service corps and nurse corps, according to AFPC.
LAF is a competitive promotion category which includes all officers except chaplains, judge advocates and all medical corps officers.
The board will affect the following active duty personnel:
■ LAF captains and first lieutenants in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 accession year groups.
■ Judge advocates with a Jan. 1, 2009 to Dec. 31, 2011 date of rank to captain.
■ Lieutenant colonels and lower-ranking officers in the competitive medical categories in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 accession groups.
Officers who are not selected for retention must separate by the end of this year."
Is it possible that the JAG Corps ends up taking less new accessions as a part of this? Sure. That said, they can't simply cut out all the new people because that leaves a obvious gap for the upcoming year groups. While it is far off, we need 2016 and 2017 CYGs to eventually move up the food chain as older officers retire and separate.
Those in my JAG CYG of 2009 and also 2010 are posed to lose a whole lot of bodies. Some folks are eligible for a voluntary separation and will take money in return for getting out. Others have some negative paperwork in their file that will make them an easy kill for the boards to involuntarily separate. After that, it comes down to things like your performance report ratings, deployments, medals, etc. I have no doubt that some talented folks may get caught up in the boards and forced out.
It is not just the Captains that are facing this; the draw down impacts all the Field Grade ranks as well - the article does not address this because there are actually like six different types of boards and separation programs going on simultaneously that all have different names and apply to the different ranks.
