Search the Community

This was meant to inform. I had retirement orders before my promotion results were released. I did not bitch or complain, I looked at the system in place and decided it was time to retire. I was not aware of the O-6 assignment process until after my O-5 board, never bothered to read that part of the AFI since I never thought it would apply to me. I didn't threaten retirement if I didn't get the assignment I wanted. That seems disingenuous and if you need to play that card, maybe it's time to retire. I had no illusions of GO, I was bound for staff O-6 life (never an exec, never a commander, 3 flying deployments, no CAOC, and no short tour). Talked to all the staff O-6s around me, honestly they all seemed miserable and waiting for 3 yrs TIG to retire. None could give me a reason to stay beyond pension or the prestige of joining the “kiddie DV pool”. Most struggled to give an example of any positive impact or change they could make and were surprised how little influence they had beyond being a cheerleader for decision that was pushed on to them. This was a bleak outlook since I was hoping for more job satisfaction or sense of accomplishment, or baring all that more work/life balance. Based on my line number, it would be another 4.5-5 years to retire as an O-6. In the end I decided to not withdraw my retirement. Through all of this, there was zero communication from my chain of command or the Colonels group about my retirement or if I would consider continuing to serve. I did more to try to talk myself into staying than anyone else did, and I failed. All that said, if it wasn't for the rapid retirement for 7-day opt, I might have stayed to see the results of the gameplan, weighed my options and decided. Retirement process is fairly long and can be stressful even with 12-15 months, cramming that into less than 4 months seemed punitive. You seem understandably salty because I walked away from something you were actively pursuing.

Anyone know of any short tour (365 day) locations, flying or otherwise besides Korea?

Just looked at mine. In 8+ years of flying C-17s, the most I was gone was 220 (deployment with COVID quarantine on the front). One year was 188 (non-flying deployment). Two years around 150 (120 day deployment). One year at 110 (90 day deployment). The other three years were <90. Not an Airdropper, SOLL II, or PNAF and my friends that were flew less. The only guy I knew who had more than 280 took a CAOC tour then a EAS deployment to chase his short tour credit (his choice). Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It'd be worth reaching out to AFPC to ask about your situation. There's also a policy letter at AFPC that isn't published that affects short tour vs long tour credit. I had pieced together enough overseas time TDY from conus to warrant both per the AFI, but AFPC only awards one or the other if your short tour is based on the 300 days/18 months. I had to ask to take the "lesser" award of short tour credit instead of the long tour credit the policy defaulted to.

AFI 36-2110 table 6.6 says you award short tour credit from going CONUS to OS for a period of 300 days within 18 months. I went from US OCONUS to a CENTCOM short tour location that I will be at for 12 months. I get short tour credit, right? I mean the reg says CONUS to OS, and technically I went OCONUS to OS? This isn't some severely messed up loophole I just found myself in where I don't get credit is it? LOL. If you ever want to gouge your eyes out reading an AFI this is the one. Also, my Short Tour is a PCS to a CZTE, unaccompanied. Do I get dwell time out of it? I honestly can't make enough sense of 36-2110 to know.

I will reach out Monday. I don't care if I get long tour credit. I will have 300+ days unaccompanied short tour within 18 months. Per the AFI because I didn't go from "CONUS" to "OS" I wanted to ensure I still get short tour credit. Also want to get Dwell time as now it looks to be bumped up to 1:2. That said because this short tour isn't a "deployment" (it's a PCS) I don't know if I get any dwell time. It's pretty unfair to be away from my family for a year in a CZTE country where everyone on a base gets deployment credit. That said I don't live on base, but would gladly if it meant I get 1:2 dwell time.

Sorry if this has been covered but... I PCS for a short tour overseas unaccompanied soon. My wife will be living in the conus while I'm gone. I'm currently OCONUS but still in America. I would like my stuff to stay in storage for the full 1 year tour, as she will be living with family near my duty station once the short tour is over. Finance is saying I will make BAH so the government will not cover the cost of NTS (non temp storage) and I will have to pay that out of pocket for the year I'm overseas. When I asked TMO they said the gov will pay for non temp storage. She is listed as a dependent on my orders and will be allowed to move to a designated location. What doesn't make sense is if she wanted to move to state X while I was gone and then move to my next duty station after my short tour, the gov would be moving our goods twice. If the goods are kept in non temp storage, they will only have to move them once to my duty station after my short tour. Does anyone know the answer to this? Can you point me to a AFI or reg that covers this so I can go to finance and explain their regs to them if need be? Any help appreciated!

Hello! Please feel free to move this if it’s not in the appropriate section. I’m currently an enlisted aviator that was selected for OTS/UPT in July (still waiting on dates). I’m interested in knowing what the average assignment length looks like for pilots, from what I can tell it’s 3-4 years. I assume it’s that way for most of the Air Force, but I have basically no experience with that since my shred can only go to 2 bases (I’ve been OCONUS for 4 years now, I know people that have done 9 year tours here or stayed at the CONUS base their entire career). I’m asking because my wife, who’s currently in the same career field as me but separating soon, wants to go to medical school; I’d like to remain at one base for like 6 years if it’s possible. Does it vary by airframe? If I ended up getting something like A-10s does my entire career involve me moving from DM to Moody to Nellis and back again? Is it possible to PCA to another unit on the same base instead of PCS? Maybe take a short tour and BOP back to the same base? Thanks for any insight.

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123252966 Looks like you'll need 300 days in an 18 mo period or 548 in 3 years. Lots of folks will already hit those numbers. Others, not so much.

Was your prior service in the Air Force? If so, did you complete a short tour? If both of those are true, it will count and you need to get it updated in your record. Like Waingro said, a paid voucher will work. There are other methods to get it counted as well, your MPF should be able to help. I was in this situation about 5 years ago. IIRC, if you completed a short tour before commissioning, it may not update your STRD, but it will get you credit for having completed a short tour, which will likely get you off of that non-vol short list. Take a look at AFI 36-2110 for info on short tour credit and STRD. ETA pertinent excerpt from AFI: (emphasis is mine) 3.5.2.2. For prior service personnel who have completed a prior OS short tour, the STRD is either the TAFMSD or date Airman completed the OS short tour, whichever is most recent. If the stop date of a prior service OS short tour is before the adjusted TAFMSD then the OS tour information may be input in the PDS under the OS tour history area for historical purposes, but this data will not adjust the STRD. However, it will it be credited to the short tour counter. The STRD will remain the same as the adjusted TAFMSD if more recent;

Apparently, yet again, "PC" related issues wrt a naming. Well, that was the over-the-hump moment, the firing I'm sure deals with a more at-large command climate ("Al Capone" twofer type of thing). Just another week in the island of misfit toys we collectively know as Team XL. I should have got short tour credit, or a campaign medal at least, for enduring 8 years of that place lol. Oh well. 😄 At least this time the shenanigans didn't occur in the presence of an O-8, but I'll digress on disturbing the corpses of the past....(not a great choice of words either, given the guilty party of that episode, committed suicide a couple months ago).

From the 30,000’ view, tour lengths, “reflect the general desirability of each location and force protection and anti-terrorism considerations,” “full range of facilities both on and off the military installation,” and job (e.g. Defense Attaché Service and Security Cooperation Office, etc). Short tours are typically, “Remote and arduous locations with limited family support facilities or with economic conditions not supporting a quality of life reasonably comparable to U.S. standards,” or, “Locations lacking adequate family support facilities or with potential threat to the safety or security of families.” https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodi/131518p.pdf You can also see the specific factors they consider at the end of that DoD Instruction (population, geography, climate, housing, medical, groceries, banking, etc). As discovered by Ram, short tour credit is based on the above conditions, not on whether your family is with you or not. Some locations will still allow families. Any location with an unaccompanied tour of 15 months or less on the following list is considered a short tour location: https://www.defensetravel.dod.mil/Docs/perdiem/browse/Travel_Regulations/Appendices/appQ.pdf Everything else and all AF specific stuff is in the posts SurelySerious linked you to.

After doing the math, I SHOULD be good for sanctuary. If the board meets for APZ for me next year in March and results come out around July or August, and then I add 6 months to that, I will be within 2 years of retirement. All that said I've started grinding away on ACSC. Maybe the board's thoughts on APZ next year won't be so negative and the short tour I'm doing will be seen as valuable or at least enough so to warrant promotion. Thing is, this job is actually fairly busy so it's not like I just sit a desk all day, I actually gotta work a bit. I think I can finish ACSC in 6 months if I put in full weekends and some after work time. It is more to show the board that I'm not giving the AF the middle finger by ignoring ACSC even if they choose not to promote me.

So this is my IPZ look (March). I will get passed over for not having done PME (ACSC). I'm at 16.5 years TAFMS. So my second look I will likely get passed over unless I do ACSC between now and then. At that point I will have 17.5 years in. Any risk of getting the boot before 20? Haven't heard of that in a while but just wanna make sure I am not screwing myself. I am currently on a short tour collecting gate months with a partner nation, which I think counts as "Joint credit"...whatever that means. I was told it is supposed to look good. but I still think I'm 95% Not gonna make LtCol. Just wanna make sure I can get to 20.

Part of it was self inflicted. I didn't want to leave where I was living unless it was to commute to an IMA job (which all got bought up by the time I figured out what that was). Had I been open to moving which I wasn't due to my wife's job and me not wanting to leave, I probably could have done that as well. Point is hopefully this works out and hopefully I won't have to deploy again after a short tour I'm on, though it doesn't give me dwell time and technically I'm not protected. Wonder if they will offer me a 2 year bonus when this one is up to get to retirement? My guess is they won't. I think when I signed mine you could do single years at a time? Or maybe 3 years was the min I can't remember. Either way I'm planning on getting no bonus my last 2 years and I also think there's a 98% chance it won't go above the 2020 AVB.

FYSA, you can do 2 years with CSP at Osan and still update your short tour return date and short tour count. I didn’t believe it, but I just returned to the CONUS from a CSP tour at Osan, and vMPF updated my date. Might wanna check that out... Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Can't speak to all the communities but a lot is luck and timing... And if you're able to make yourself eligible for the right opportunities. In the Viper, you'll be gone a lot for your ops assignment, either tdy or deployments. After that, family life will depend on your assignment and if you have short tour credit. I made it through 10 years in the Viper never being on a short tour, although I did spend 5 months at Kunsan. My last 2 assignments were great for the fam, Luke and Nellis. Life is the guard is great so whatever you pick, make sure it's an airframe that has options in the guard/res in areas you're happy to live. Flying raptors or fat Amy would be cool but have limited options outside AD. Don't plan on getting a TX into another jet, you have no idea what the landscape will look like in 10 years. I take the approach that if I HAVE to get 1 divorce in my life time, the USAF will definitely be the winner of that one. Take care of your family first. When it comes down to it, the big Air Force really doesn't care about you (although hopefully you'll have Commanders that do).

You gentlemen have a great deal of knowledge and I have a two part question. I'm about to PCS for a good job, then I plan to retire at that location. My functional told me I don't have to worry about a 365 since I have received credit for 3 short tours. People were telling me to do my ACSC, but I refused. If you are happy in life, shouldn't you walk away feeling like you are on top or is this a dumb premise I have surmised? I have a great friend who is doing well in his career on the support side. He went to Bagram for 2 months and I did a short tour flying there for 6 months. He received short tour credit for taking his family overseas. I did a short tour in Iraq and I also received credit for my enlisted time overseas. My discussions with him make me feel like he is full of the blue kool aid. He said, "If people could pick jobs again, they probably wouldn't be pilots." I wanted to tell him you sat your a$$ in the old Russian building at Bagram never to leave the wire as the flyers launched sorties to kill the bad guys, protect convoys, and prevent him from taking an incoming rocket up the ass. Are these the types of "leaders" who will be left running the Air Force?

Did a search and all that came up was MC-12 info. I'm looking for current and specific info on C-12's. The following are my questions: 1) What's the ops tempo like? 2) Are they all short tours? 3) Where are they located and where do I find current locations that are open? 4) What are the pros and cons with this gig? 5) Does this assignment make you eligible for a non-vol MC-12 tour? Mobility dude here looking for some "change". Considering C-12 as an option for next assignment or short tour. Thanks!

If only there was a function whereby you could query the website...http://www.flyingsquadron.com/forums/search/?q="Short tour"&updated_after=any&sortby=relevancy&search_and_or=or And THEN, a whole discussion solely based on the topic you desire to learn about. http://www.flyingsquadron.com/forums/topic/15974-short-tour-info/

My family is completely supportive either way. My wife keeps telling me I’m stupid for not just accepting what I know I’m going to do. My best friend flies for SWA and tells me I’m dumb if I take the slot, guess I’m damned with way. Fam would probably stay in place in Florida during school as NJ during covid seems to suck. Not to mention it seems like there is quite a bit of travel for ASAM but that could be different with covid as well. I know the current class had a good portion of their travel canx’d. Also, an AFIT masters program in ~11 months seems pretty taxing on time. Financially I am probably diversified more than the majority of people and am continuing to expand. (Anyone got some dogecoin?) (Anyone have the scoop on the AvB?) I’m recently off a short tour so I did have the luxury of spending about 18 months away from my fam a few years back which makes me not want to do it again but it should limited that type of thrash assignment from occurring again. Probably one of the big issues I have with where I sit is I’m a mobility guy who has spent 2/3rds of my career in AETC. With that, I really don’t want to drag my kids back to a UPT base after staff, which I feel is a very likely option, because the schools all seem to be subpar. I have told a couple of my bro’s and they all tell me that I’m the type of person the AF needs to stick around. That scares me when I look at a mentor of mine who took command about a year ago and it has worn him out. He’s the same type of person that I am. He looks tired and defeated. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've got two married friends on seperate remote 365s that finally had a join spouse follow on. Both are being extended now. Have a few other friends on accompanied short tours in Korea who were just extended over two years and now lose their short tour credit. This whole thing is severely disrupting a lot of lives.

AFPC already told me I'm ineligible for any short tours. I knocked out two short tours as a very young captain. My long tour in Korea as a SrA is noted on my officer record as well. As a matter of fact, remember the 100% chance for promotion to major? A captain that works for me found out he made major in August and got hit with a 365. He leaves this assignment in May for a 365. Don't take the devils rank! Last rant: We have a school select who just arrived and will be leaving soon for school. He bragged about being here 2 months and winning FGOQ. Beat out a guy who just isn't relatable to his Airmen. The school guy said his boss told him to put in for the quarterly. Since he won, I heard him say he definitely put in for an annual too. You wonder where douchebag CCs are made and why awards don't mean you're necessarily a good leader. This! Any truth to special duty guys/gals with select DAFSCs receiving a very hard look for promotion?

I have a couple of questions about this short tour subject, if anyone has some info. First, does anyone have an answer to the above question? Seems pretty applicable in my airframe. Secondly, I am wondering how important a short tour is at my current stage. I am an 06 Captain with DOR of 2010 and a C-17 driver at second C-17 assignment. I could be getting a 180 day CAOC tour and if I combine this with another 60 day deployment, then I might be able to squeeze out a short tour (also counting other OCONUS days TDY from other missions). In this scenario I would be using the 300 days in 18 month rule. Right now my STRD is some random date in 2007, which confuses me because I don't believe I should have a short tour at all...and so I figured your STRD would just be your date of commissioning. Regardless, if I can get my STRD to be sometime this year...could that be beneficial to me to avoid other shitty deals and possible iTDYs, etc in the future? I would imagine that most of my peers do not have a short tour as well, and so once we become Majors in 2 or 3 years, we will be looked at for all these random deployments and the guys with the most recent STRD will be the winners, correct?

Not sure if it matters for prior-e short tours, but if possible, recommend getting your short-tour return date updated. I've seen two separate guys get tagged for 365s, then shut back off when they updated their short tour data. Paid travel voucher, LOE, end of tour decoration, just gather what you can and take it to MPF.