August 8, 2014

Less than a month after the Army informed nearly 1,200 captains that they would be involuntarily selected to separate from service (some while in combat zones), the Army announced it would soon notify 550 majors that they too would be forced out of service.   

The Army is resorting to involuntary separations in order to bring its active duty force down from its post-9/11 peak of 570,000 members to 490,000 by October 2015. It will further shrink to 450,000 troops by 2019, and if sequestration isn’t avoided it could contract to as small as 420,000 servicemembers.   

The involuntary separations come after the Army already exhausted less draconian drawdown methods such as slowing accessions and offering voluntary separation incentives.  

Some of the majors selected will have enough service time to retire, but many others will come up short.   

The Guard and Reserve will likely pick up some of the separating captains and majors to fill their needs, the rest will have less than a year to prepare to transition back into the civilian world.  

The Army’s Soldier for Life Transition program is working with MOAA and other Military and Veterans Service Organizations to assist in providing transition services for these servicemembers.  

As a member benefit, MOAA also offers a military-friendly job board, interview preparation tools, and career transition seminars around the country. The career transition team is prepared to assist with military-to-civilian résumé critiques, personalized one-on-one counseling, salary negotiation, and more. To learn more about MOAA’s career transition services, visit www.moaa.org/career.