nash031
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
And to Jimnjana... doesn't matter whether you're an officer or enlisted the general term reenlist applies for both. It's just the decision to extend your stay with the military.
It could be different in other services, but in the Navy, I've never "enlisted" nor "re-enlisted", and there is a distinct difference in officer and enlisted career progression/extension.
I can work tour to tour right now if I elected to. If you're signing up for a bonus, such as nuclear continuation pay, department head bonus, or a career status bonus, yes, you sign up for a term of years. But since I hit 12, I could've elected to work under no service obligation other than the orders I was currently under, I just would've been throwing away about $18,000 per year doing so.
My continuation pay contract says nothing about reenlisting. I agree not to tender a resignation for a period of years. Once that period of years is over, as an officer you still have to finish out your orders up to one or two years, depending on the type of assignment. In fact, this is how BUPERS retains a lot of due-course, direct-accession officers. They end certain tours (SWO command tours, for example) at the 19 year point, and are forced to take a set of follow-on orders to hit 20. Once they accept those orders, they are obligated for two years. During that tour, they might screen for O6 and put it on near the end of YCS 21. In order to obtain the O6 high-three pension, they have to stay in until they reach 24 or 25 years... and so on.
In most cases, enlisted hit their EAOS and can exit the service regardless of what their orders say. We just don't make it a habit of transferring Sailors with short periods until their EAOS so as not to gap their next command.
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