Dozens of Army pilots are sounding the alarm on what they say is “gross mismanagement” of their service contracts that could result in them being required to serve three years longer than they’d originally anticipated.
A problem surrounding how service obligation contracts are enforced could result in hundreds of pilots having to stay in uniform three years longer than they’d expected, possibly disrupting plans for civilian life, including wedding plans, their spouse’s careers and their own civilian employment opportunities.
“I want to start upfront by saying we acknowledge that there were errors in the application of aviation officers’ active-duty service obligation,” the head of Army personnel, Lt. Gen. Douglas Stitt, told reporters during a roundtable on Thursday. “We are fixing those errors and we are in communication with the unit leadership and impacted officers. Our overall goal to correct this issue is to provide predictability and stability for our soldiers while maintaining readiness across our force.”
Maj. Gen. Tom Drew, commander of Army Human Resources Command, told reporters on Thursday that they became aware of the contract issue when a handful of officers submitted routine paperwork to be released from active-duty, only for the Army to tell them they still had three more years of service on their contracts.
After realizing the mistake for those officers, Drew said the Army then did an audit of sorts for other aviation officers, finding the error that is now impacting roughly 600 people.
A letter signed by dozens of aviators and sent to Congress outlining the issue said that they had been “misled” by Human Resources Command, West Point and Reserve Officer’ Training Corps Aviation Branch representatives and career managers in the Army.
“As an Aviation Officer near the end of my understood service…
Read the full article here