Sanctuary and USERRA
 

Does anyone know...if you enter sanctuary, however, you are at the 5 year limit, are the new “sanctuary “ orders exempt from the 5 year time limit? Thanks

Sanctuary is DOD only
 

Sanctuary protects you against the DoD purposefully not letting you get to retirement. Standard practice is for guard/reserve units to require you to sign a waiver for orders when your TAFMS reaches the 18 year point.

The USERRA (DoL) law does not specifically mention sanctuary that I remember. Research service members law center for what exempt from the 5 year limit, the link is at the bottom of this post. Things like completion of a military obligation (like for UPT) that go beyond the 5 year limit. In residence PME I think is exempt. Return to AD may also be exempt.

If you have spent time on Contingency orders (location is not relevant) then they do not count against 5 year limit, but must state so on the orders or the DD214. Preferable both! I can guarantee you that contingency orders for the middle east are exempt, but I am not sure about Pacific AOR deployments. I don't think they are exempt, but do not really know.

Law Center - ROA

Thanks a lot! I’ll check it out

What he said. No exemption for sanctuary.

But you would have to try pretty hard to have accumulated five years of non exempt AD since 9/11. Anything remotely related to GWOT, OCO, NE, etc is exempt. Research that.

Besides orders in war zones, and doing in house PME/war colleges, anyone know of other long term orders that are exempt from counting towards the USERRA 5-year floor?

I've heard, though have no proof, if you're a commander you can get around it.

Generally...

- MOS Training
- AD Obligation incurred by any training. This includes things like seasoning, etc.
- Orders which tap funding associated with war authorizations. Almost any orders to any operational command which deploys ISO of war efforts should qualify (even if you don't deploy on that set of orders). I think this would include things like IP duty.

Great stuff. What does IP stand for (Inst Pilot?). Anyone have more specific examples of some INCONUS orders that may satisfy the above?

Staff fills at COCOMS or other big HQs. Most or all staff plus-ups were justified as war-time requirements of one flavor or another. This probably applies to all COCOMS and major HQ's even if their AOR was not the desert.

The navy was always good about putting the right language on the orders, other services perhaps not. But the orders do NOT need to state they are exempt, they just have to qualify under the rules, which can typically be demonstrated by the funding and/or authority under which the recall was conducted (which may well be stated on the orders somewhere).

IP = instructor pilot.