SRB Waiver Process

As I touched on in the BOT Guide Post, I was receiving SRB payments during my application process.  Luckily for me I hit the 1/2 served mark about one month prior to my submission date, so it did not cause any problems for me.

Here is how the SRB wavier works.  If you have or are receiving an SRB, you are ineligible for OTS.  However, if you have served at least one half of your SRB period, you are eligible for a waiver.  For me my SRB period was four years so since I just barely served two years before I applied, I was eligible but I required a waiver.

Apparently the waiver process is automatic and only requires the AFRS to do one extra step for your application.  They will review your SRB start date, calculate the halfway point, and if you are past your waiver is approved and signed by the appropriate authority.  If you have not, from what I heard, you are not eligible, will therefore not get a waiver, and are therefore not eligible for OTS.  Again all of this is how it worked in January 2015.

UPDATE 6/3/2015

My Story:

Prior to retraining in October of 2012 I extended my contract to April 2014 to cover the retraining retainability requirements.  In my head I considered this my extension window.  In December of 2012, I re-enlisted so I could cash in on an SRB for my career field.  This of course pushed my Expiration of Term of Service (ETS) to April 2018.  I considered this my re-enlistment window.

Timeline Summary:

• My assumed extension window:  October 2012 – April 2014
• Re-Enlisted:  December 2012
• My assumed re-enlistment window:  April 2014 – April 2018

Initially when I read the requirement in the BOT Questionnaire I was concerned I was not eligible to apply because I thought my halfway point was April 2016.  After doing a ton of research I discovered I was indeed eligible.  Here is why:

At the end of the day, my vMPF “Date of Current Enlistment” was December 2012 and my “Term of Enlistment” was “4”.  This is all the board has to go off of because that is what is in the system.  Based on this information, my halfway point was indeed December 2014.  This was GREAT news because the application deadline was the following January.

I’m assuming this all works out because of how the money is disbursed.  Even though I had 1.5 years left on my extension and four years tacked on as re-enlistment, I received my bonus payments based on my actual re-enlistment date of December.  So technically the day you re-enlist begins your “Date of Current Enlistment” and your extension is tacked on to the end (because SRB payments have also stopped).

BOT Questionnaire 2 SRB Reference:

Are or have you received an IEB/SRB within the present enlistment and have not served at least half of the term of enlistment?

UPDATE 8/9/2015

Someone had questions about this and called Rose.  He said, “she said check off a SRB waiver required on the Questionnaire 2 and to mark on the Form 56 that a “other” waiver is needed (SRB).  I imagine this is interim guidance until the new BOT guide is published with updated Q2 is published.

Ref:  AD BOT Guide 26 JUN 14 C3 22 Dec 2014