I have now begun my terminal leave, and without much fanfare. I told my superiors I did not care for the pomp and circumstance of a farewell or the pinning ceremony for an ETS award, and with the activity the unit was under they seemed happy to oblige. In fact, they did not even realize I had signed out on terminal leave. A week after I had left and moved across the country I received a text message asking me to appear for my final performance evaluation counseling. I responded that that would be a little difficult, considering I had already started my civilian job.
I initially attempted to take advantage of several transition programs to allow me to leave ahead of my terminal leave date, including the new Career Skills Program up to 180 days ahead of your ETS date. This is a fantastic program that allows a Service Member to transition to on-the-job training, free to a future employer, while still being paid a military paycheck, and can lead to employment at the end of that training. The Department of Defense memorandum authorizing the program indicates that the approval authority is a Battalion Commander, and mine was on-board with the program. However, it seems that Installation Generals have decided the program falls under their purview and usurped the program from the DoD's intended location of approval, because they believe there is a technicality in the regulations that a Soldier must be placed on Permissive TDY to partake in this program and Battalion Commanders do not have the approval authority to do that. My installation commander, in lieu of DoD guidance, restricted the program in such a way that no Service Member could possibly qualify under the guidelines, even though my Battalion Commander approved my absence and my future employer was eager to accept me under the conditions of the program. I found this typical of processes in the military, where someone that has never encountered you as an individual finds it easier to rubber stamp "No" on a request. Finding the people in the Military who are willing to work to get to the "Yes" is difficult. For those of you willing to stay in the military, surround yourself with the kinds of people that are willing to find the way to get to the "Yes." I was the person who got in to trouble by trying to ferret out the "yes" answer even after superior after superior told me "no." When I finally found people that would help me find out how to accomplish something, the people that had told me "no" before were, of course, upset that I did not give up. It is those people, the "no" people, who are so prevalent, that drove me to find the pathway out of the Army, because outside the Army is where success can be found. Sure, success inside the Army is a well trod path, but walking that way took me farther and farther from the people I loved.
There are other ways to leave the military earlier than terminal leave allows. One is "Advanced leave," which turns into excess leave upon termination. According to Department of Army regulations, a Battalion Commander can approve up to 30 days of Advanced Leave in cases of morale, family emergencies, etc. Upon termination, excess leave is reimbursed financially to the military as if you simply were not working for those 30 days, so you basically do not get a pay check and have no benefits for those 30 days. However, my higher echelon somehow superceded DA regulations and decided that a Brigade Commander had to sign any request for Advanced Leave and effectively stalled my request until it became meaningless. Again, this was a case of someone simply saying "no" and not attempting to help me find the "yes" answer, even though my employer wanted me and had already tried and failed to get me through the Career Skills Program 180 days early.
There is currently a program for Enlisted Soldiers to exit the Army 180 days ahead of their contract date in order to attend College, you can check with your Reenlistment NCO about that, it's a great option.
Officers with an approved ETS date can also request an earlier release with HRC for the purposes of accepting a job offer or starting school on a specific date, which must be signed by a Brigade Commander. Check with S1, some call it a "curtailment" but that is not the official term which only applies to shortening a tour or a term of enlistment. I had requested a 60 day early release, which I was assured would be approved, but which took HRC 2 months to deny.
In the end, the only process that got me out was my terminal leave date. And be sure to note, not all Soldiers get Permissive TDY for transition, only Soldiers involuntarily separated and Retiring Soldiers. Normal separations are not allowed Permissive TDY by regulation, although apparently some S1's do not understand this and approve the paperwork to the separating Soldier's later detriment!
