I wonder if you're deployed in the same month you actually recieve a VSP payoff (day after Date of Separation), whether you can get it all tax-free?

Hmmm....

Or maybe take a deployment as a reservist (shorter than 179) and make sure you get in-county in the same month as your DOS....

This works with reenlistment bonuses...

By the way: per the AF Times:

Force-shaping update expected Wednesday

Staff report
Posted : Tuesday Aug 21, 2007 14:04:23 EDT

The Air Force should announce Wednesday further details for the service’s next wave of officer and enlisted manpower cuts, officials at the Pentagon told Air Force Times on Tuesday afternoon.

Air Force officials have estimated about 4,000 full-time positions will need to be cut in 2008 through attrition, voluntary separations and showing airmen the door.

This year’s force-shaping measures are in their final stages. In July, the service chose about 300 captains and majors for involuntary separation.

The Air Force expects to end fiscal 2007 with about 334,000 active-duty airmen, 12,000 fewer positions than the service started the year with. By the end of 2009, the Air Force’s stated goal is to have the active-duty down to 316,000 positions.

While Air Force leaders and some lawmakers have said the service will need more airmen to support the Army and Marine Corps, which are both adding thousands of troops to their end strengths, no one has offered firm numbers on how many positions the Air Force will need or how to pay for them.

The only airmen Congress has moved to protect from cuts in 2008 are about 800 medical positions, mostly filled by enlisted airmen.