Originally Posted by
tanker
I've been told by many of my fellow pilots who were ANG/AFR that AD orders where very difficult for those who were approaching the 18 year AD time frame. I was told that the reason was that once a pilot hit 18 year AD he was given sanctuary which entitled that person a chance to earn AD retirement. That was something many ANG/AFR units tried to avoid.
This is true. Per title 10, once you reach 18 years of active-duty service, you MUST be allowed to remain on AD to reach 20. There's no chance about it, baring some kind of misconduct, it's guaranteed.
For this reason reserve organizations tend to prefer to not let you get there, for two reasons...
1) They have to keep you AD, even if they don't have a job for you. With the federal services they could ship you overseas of course.
2) They have to pay for "early" retirement.
Different services deal with this differently, Army guard seems to be the most generous, depending on the state.
The Navy will cut you off from any additional orders around 17 years. They need the buffer because annual training counts towards sanctuary as well as recall orders, and they cannot deny you your statutory annual training.