Milper Message 14-143 Army Career Intermission Pilot Program

This will result in a nice OER sentence for someone who helped create the program, O-6 or similar. Second, this will clearly be a discriminator in future boards, OSB/ESERB/SERB/promotion/other. How could someone on sabbatical be competitive with someone doing a real job? I suppose if while on sabbatical one did something of serious self-improvement, that might be of worth towards a future board; taking time off for "personal reasons" or for a Euro-trip, not so much. Now we can conjecture all we like; we'll see the data on this in a couple years, once enough folks have participated in the program and have gone through boards. My guess is we'll see a slide in two to four years that shows poor selection rates for those that have participated in this program versus those that didn't. (My guess: this will be like AF-PAK Hands; touted as a career move, while in reality sort of a kiss-of-death, at least in the last round of OSB/ESERB/promotion boards)

I can see some advantage to this. It could permit some Soldiers/Officers to pursue education or additional experience while permitting them to return. My only question is how might this affect career development due to the break in service that would be experience. Also, will TIG/TIS freeze?

If the intent is to meet education time, maybe the Army needs to consider expanding fully-funded education programs.

I am not sure that this would meet the intent as a retention tool. It almost seems like it gives Soldiers a way out without requiring their return.