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Mike, I worked with Riffed officers in the mid-70's. They were given something like $10-15,000 as they went out the door. Since then, if nothing else, they've gotten more generous. I remember a Rif in the 90's and an active duty CPT who was assigned to our Reserve Center. The offer to him was $1500 per month until he hit age 60. Nothing after that. The other choice was waiting for the roll of the dice to see if he'd make major. He was a bachelor, took the money, and went back to college to get an MBA.

I remember waiting for my truck to be repaired, back somewhere between 2005-2010. I struck up a conversation with a National Guard NCO. Turned out he was in my original Guard unit (which I'd left back in the mid-70's when I found a more appropriate home in a Military Intelligence detachment.) I knew that my old Guard outfit had spent a couple tours in "the sandbox". I asked him how that was working out. He said they were losing a lot of young NCOs as a result, and was worried how the unit might do as a result should they be ordered to active duty again. The Army National Guard went from 400,000 to 300,000 under Clinton, and the Army Reserve from 300,000 to 200,000 . . . while being expected to pick up the slack for all the cuts on the Active side. All of that from cashing in the so called "peace dividend" when the Wall came down, the Soviet Union self destructed, and the Cold War ended. One of the CIA directors from that era remarked that while we'd manage to slay a very dangerous dragon, we still lived in a jungle world populated by a variety of poisonous snakes. One of which struck on 9/11.

In an April 1 Washington Post blurb about the AR-15, one of the charts showed that 8% of the population today served in the Military. 92% did not serve. What's up with that? Thanks for my service.

L. Brown.
It was $15,000, but they took $3,000 out of it for taxes. When the court said they had to do things correctly and give us a "re-look", if we went back in, we would have to pay the whole $15,000 back and roll the dice over getting some of the $3,000 back from the IRS. I was lucky enough that I was hired as a DA Civilian employee in the same job I had as a Cpt. The grade I qualified for was a significant raise in pay, and since it was overseas, assignment to field grade quarters. This is why I know that what they did during this time did not save necessarily save money "over all". I knew "bucking them" would "mark" me, and since I was Regular Army, I would have to stand twice as many promotion boards (Both RA and AUS) and after things calmed down, they would have twice as many chances to "get" me, during the 10 years I had left until I could retire. One of my friends was a Major with 17 years and 10 months on his release date (if you had 18 years, they had to let you stay until 20), his "re-look" allowed him to make it to retirement and made sense. It was in my best interest to not apply for the "re-look", and I ultimately retired, without regrets, as a civilian employee. The only mistake I made was not joining the reserves, before going back to Germany. As Regular Army, I couldn't "roll over" to inactive reserves, and it turned out that the Reserve unit there was only for current members to stay "current" and didn't accept new members. I believe you have the 60 years of age deal backward; Your friend ( and I , if I had joined the inactive reserves) would have had to wait until he was 60 before he could start drawing the $1,500, and that would continue for life( if he had been married, after his death, his widow would have been entitled to survivor's benefits of around half of that, plus raises).
Mike

I almost met the lovely Jane Fonda as she protested outside of the gate during our annual 82nd Airborne Division review July of 73. But it didn't happen as were were told that the protest was "off limits"... someone thought that there might be trouble???

I can recall some of those RIFs. The sad part was, soldiers that were paying their dues were discarded for contractors, that increased under budget games. Not neccessarily contractors who could defend the nation, but those whose job it was to cut benefits to troops, and put more on the plates of the deployed, wondering what their families back home would lose next.