Have we gotten to the point where guys with a short tour are getting tagged for 365s or is 1 short still enough to keep you off the list? I know prior Es are vulnerable for the 365s because of their ancient STRDs (relative to their commissioning year group peers). What's the latest trend? Who tops the list?

Anyone heard of any good (relative, of course) 365s lately?

Vipers in Egypt. Up your life insurance, but as of a couple years ago they had great quarters and financial perks.

Vipers in Egypt. Up your life insurance, but as of a couple years ago they had great quarters and financial perks.

Been there, done that, would recommend.

Although not as footloose and fancy-free as it once was still a great 1-year vacation ending in an opr that says 'commander'

Great deal for the senior enlisted troops on the team as well (for all the thread lurkers)

Edited November 10, 201213 yr by HossHarris

Have we gotten to the point where guys with a short tour are getting tagged for 365s or is 1 short still enough to keep you off the list? I know prior Es are vulnerable for the 365s because of their ancient STRDs (relative to their commissioning year group peers). What's the latest trend? Who tops the list?

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?

Your current STRD should be a shifting date that is x number of days after your entry to active duty date (I forget the acronym). For every day that you're TDY from CONUS to OCONUS, that date should shift to the right. Deployments, trips, whatever... if you were TDY CONUS to OCONUS it changes the date. So, say you've been OCONUS TDY a total of 365 days... it would read whatever date exactly a year after your entry to AD... basically the start of your AF clock.

Next to your STRD you'll see a (*) type thing. The parenthesis will get a "1" or "2" or whatever for every short tour you do. I believe this will be whether or not you do the 300 days in 18 months or the full year short tour thing.

The way the system is "supposed" to work, every time you file a travel voucher your vMPF updates with your TDY duty history, and your OCONUS days TDY get updated as well. Via magic, this somehow eventually makes it on your SURF. In reality, the system doesn't work and MPF doesn't do their jobs, so you have to force them to update it using proof of travel vouchers, etc.

You're right in that prior-E folks get hosed under this system. Yep, the difference in STRDs, even not having a number in the parenthesis, might be the discriminator between you or someone else getting a 365 to a shithole. Yep, the odds have never been higher that you'll get a 365 to a shithole if you decide to make the AF a career these days, especially if you sign the bonus. FAIPs and OCONUS PCS'd folks are especially nervous... it's only CONUS to OCONUS TDYs that change the STRD. Those exercises in Thailand or wherever for Yokota folks don't count as far as I know. Maybe that's changed.

If you are stationed OCONUS and you go TDY anywhere else OCONUS, you continue to gain days. You do not gain days if you are "home" at your OCONUS base.

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?

Yes.

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?

Yes having a short tour in the bank is good money. Especially if you're prior E, or get passed over.

Don't confuse deployments with 365s. Having a recent short tour return date has nothing to do with you getting picked up for a good deal 179. But it will save you from a short tour (not many for 17 drivers in my day) or a 365 (seem to be growing all the time).

Do you just look at your SURF to see how many days you have (or rather, MPF has managed to actually track) for the OCONUS to ____ TDY time? Once I get 365 total I now get a (2) next to my STRD (already have one ST)?

Edited January 7, 201312 yr by brabus

The days OCONUS TDY should be on the virtual MPF under duty history. It keeps track of all the TDYs you've ever been on and the tracking system seems to have gotten better since DTS took over all TDYs. Short tour credit is not as simple as hit 365 days, get one point. We're not back under the old system of 300 days in 18 months. Does not have to be consecutive, but if you hit 300 days within 18 months, you should get a/another short tour credit and your STRD will be reset to when you arrived back at home station.

As to the question about guys with short tour credit getting hit up for a non-vol 365, I haven't personally heard of that yet. All the guys I know who have been non-vol'd did not have short tour credit.

Any idea where I can get some info on this one? AD only I'm guessing? Thanks

PM sent

You're right in that prior-E folks get hosed under this system. Yep, the difference in STRDs, even not having a number in the parenthesis, might be the discriminator between you or someone else getting a 365 to a shithole. Yep, the odds have never been higher that you'll get a 365 to a shithole if you decide to make the AF a career these days, especially if you sign the bonus. FAIPs and OCONUS PCS'd folks are especially nervous... it's only CONUS to OCONUS TDYs that change the STRD. Those exercises in Thailand or wherever for Yokota folks don't count as far as I know. Maybe that's changed.

Thanks for the info everybody. They sure did not make it easy to get a short tour with these new changes...at least not in the C-17 community (unless of course you go on a 365).

Thanks for the info everybody. They sure did not make it easy to get a short tour with these new changes...at least not in the C-17 community (unless of course you go on a 365).

i think that was the point of changing it.....

We're now back under the old system of 300 days in 18 months.

Think this is what you meant.

You are correct.

Has anyone recently finished a short tour? I am about to finish and have heard that it's taking 45 days for the short tour to reflect on people's records. Any insight or advice on speeding that up? Would suck to finish a short tour only to get picked off for a 365 because the shoes hadn't finished updating my records.

I finished my short tour in January and it still hasn't appeared. Today I went into MPF with my voucher and he updated my ribbon, but said IPR had to update my short tour return date and counter.

Edited May 4, 201312 yr by Homestar

Mine only took a couple of weeks to show. I may have just been lucky... the travel voucher on the other hand was not so swift.

Has anyone recently finished a short tour? I am about to finish and have heard that it's taking 45 days for the short tour to reflect on people's records. Any insight or advice on speeding that up? Would suck to finish a short tour only to get picked off for a 365 because the shoes hadn't finished updating my records.

Basically, AFPC sucks at life. I just finished up a series of deployments two weeks ago that would give me short tour credit. I talked to MPF about updating my STRD, and they said it's a quick process once the deployment is showing in the system, but that I'd have to work through IPR to get the deployment in the system. When I went to IPR, they said it takes AFPC 45 days to load a contingency deployment in the system, and that was the LIMFAC for getting it updated. They also told me that several other officers at my base were having the same problem as me with AFPC taking forever to update the information. It's also made it a pain to get my PDMRA days, and I'm trying to get another deployment turned off due to it violating dwell time.

Inaccurate.

Last time I tried to get Yokota tdy's to count as oconus mpf shot me down. How do we get that fixed? I suppose I'd have to dig out travel vouchers from 5 years ago...

Edited May 4, 201312 yr by olevelo

Last time I tried to get Yokota tdy's to count as oconus mpf shot me down. How do we get that fixed? I suppose I'd have to dig out travel vouchers from 5 years ago...

Yokota days only count when you're TDY overnight away from Yokota.

Has anyone recently finished a short tour? I am about to finish and have heard that it's taking 45 days for the short tour to reflect on people's records. Any insight or advice on speeding that up? Would suck to finish a short tour only to get picked off for a 365 because the shoes hadn't finished updating my records.

Dude, if you PCS to a new base after a short tour and get picked off for a 365 within 45 days you are the idiot, not the shoes.

Or do you suck at writing and mean that you are about to get 300 days in 18 months to get short tour credit? They are not the same thing.

Dude, if you PCS to a new base after a short tour and get picked off for a 365 within 45 days you are the idiot, not the shoes.

Or do you suck at writing and mean that you are about to get 300 days in 18 months to get short tour credit? They are not the same thing.

Wow.

anyway, 300 days in 18 months, is what I meant as everyone else seemed to understand. Yes, if you PCS you are safe for a year so if I had finished a 365 w/PCS, I wouldn't be asking about the 45 days it apparently takes to get this short tour in the system.

On a completely different note, a lot of people might not realize that dwell time only protects you from centcom. You could get sent to a 365 somewhere else during dwell. Thus, the urgency for logging short tour credit and my frustration with waiting 45 days.....

Other than butter's post, thanks for the replies.

Dude, if you PCS to a new base after a short tour and get picked off for a 365 within 45 days you are the idiot, not the shoes.

Or do you suck at writing and mean that you are about to get 300 days in 18 months to get short tour credit? They are not the same thing.

Good....Let the hate flow through you...

(edit: added quote for clarity)

Edited May 5, 201312 yr by Homestar

Yokota days only count when you're TDY overnight away from Yokota.

Yes I know that, hence the question about how to get "Yokota tdy's" to count.