Originally Posted by
rickair7777
At face value, the Army is interpreting the contract correctly. Some folks basically got a good deal in the past due to what amounts to an admin error.
Mil is not prison, never heard of serving your incurred obligations "concurrently"
It's pretty normal. I was Navy and had two concurrent obligations that played out inside of other obligations. They structure them that way because they are normally shorter "add on" obligations for things like education (masters programs, GI Bill benefits to family) where they want to ensure they get their return on investment for giving you something but don't want to punish you by adding it on to much longer service commitments for things like retention bonuses or accession commitments that can be up to 10 years.
It looks like in this case, a lot of people got a good deal which set expectations that the good deal would continue down the line. Pretty poor form to do it the way they are doing it IMO, but you get the service members you deserve. I know how I would feel if I were planning a transition and then suddenly got extended on active duty.