Author: Joel Schofer, MD, MBA, CPE
Throwback Thursday Classic Post – What is the Obligation for Accepting Promotion? What if You Don’t Want the Promotion?
Question: What is the obligation for accepting promotion?
Answer: There is no obligation if you end up resigning. If you want to retire, though, the additional obligation is:
- 2 years for LCDR
- 3 years for CDR and CAPT
This can all be found on page 5 of OPNAVINST 1811.3A. Or you can read one of my other posts called “You were accepted for promotion to O5 or O6 – should you accept it?” where I break it all down for you.
Question: What if you want to decline the promotion? The promotion NAVADMIN that comes out every month tells you how to decline it in paragraph 2:
2. If a selected officer does not decline promotion in writing prior to the
projected date of rank (noted above in paragraph 1), that officer is
considered to have accepted the promotion on the date indicated. An officer
who chooses to decline promotion must submit the declination in writing to
COMNAVPERSCOM (PERS-806) within 30 days of the release of this
NAVADMIN. Limited duty officers declining appointment to lieutenant will be
reverted to enlisted status within 90 days of projected promotion date.
COVID-19 Travel Restrictions Installation Status Update, July 15, 2020
Here is the latest installation status:
COVID-19_TRAVEL_RESTRICTIONS_INSTALLATION_STATUS_UPDATE_JULY_15_2020
2020 PFA Cycle 2 Fact Sheet
Here’s a fact sheet on the 2020 PFA cycle that has been excused:
Associate Director of Healthcare Business at NMCP – O4-O6
The Director for Healthcare Business (DHB) seeks qualified applicants from any Corps, senior O-4/O-5/O-6 for the position of Associate DHB. All applicants must either be at NMCP, have orders inbound to NMCP, or have clearance from their Detailer to apply.
Applicants should submit:
- Letter of intent
- Director’s endorsement
- CV
- BIO
- Last 3 fitness reports
Applications should be submitted to Mr. Osmin Flowers (contact in the global) and cc CDR Margaret Reynolds (contact in the global).
**Deadline to apply is no later than COB 23 JUL 2020**
Anticipate interviews will be conducted the week of 27-31 JUL 2020.
Please direct any questions regarding the vacancy to CDR Margaret Reynolds or CDR Taylor Banks (contact in the global).
What’s New in the FY21 O5 Promotion Board Convening Order?
There were a lot of changes in the FY21 O6 promotion board convening order that emphasized operational medicine and readiness, but what about the recently released O5 order? While there are some minor changes from last year’s order I won’t address, here are all the important changes…
Page 2 of the FY21 Order
The promotion opportunities went from 85% down to 83% for the Dental Corps and from 63% down to 55% for the Medical Service Corps. The Medical and Nurse Corps remained the same at 77% and 70%, respectively.
Pages 8-10, Paragraph 6 – Medical Community Considerations
Language was added that emphasized operational medicine and readiness. I put the new language in underlined italics:
- “Knowledge and proven performance/experience in a variety of settings including operational medicine, joint medical operations, and current garrison health care and fleet/FMF support is necessary.”
- “Additionally, Navy Medicine greatly values joint experience and formal education, including JPME with knowledge and experience in a variety of settings including joint medical operations and current garrison health care delivery and operational support initiatives.”
- “They must understand and use best clinical practices and business tools in managing the health and readiness of our operating forces to ensure they are healthy and on the job.” A reference to “population health” was changed to “health and readiness.”
- This statement was added, “Excellence in operational support settings should receive special consideration as Navy Medicine shifts greater focus to readiness and operational support.“
- “Best and fully qualified officers for the rank of commander and below will be those who have demonstrated superior sustained performance in jobs that demonstrate increasing responsibility, scope and complexity across the spectrum of military medicine, especially inclusive of operational platforms.
The Bottom Line
Operational medicine and readiness is emphasized in the new O5 promotion board convening order.
Secretary Mark T. Esper Message to the Force on Accomplishments in Implementation of the National Defense Strategy
On 7 JUL 2020, Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper released a video address to thank the members of the Department for their hard work and contributions as a team to achieve the goals of the National Defense Strategy over the past year. The Secretary addressed the progress made through three main lines of efforts: lethality and readiness of the force; strengthening allies and build partners; reforming the Department for greater efficiency and accountability. He also addresses his personal priority line of effort: service members and their families.
In addition, the Secretary outlined ten targeted goals to support implementation of these lines of efforts.
“Soon after I came into office, civilian and uniformed leaders across the Department and I met to develop detailed plans to implement these lines of effort. We created a list of ten targeted goals, each with sub tasks, and we set out to accomplish most of these by the end of 2020. They are as follows:
- Review, update, and approve all China and Russia plans;
- Implement the Immediate Response Force, Contingency Response Force, and Dynamic Force Employment enhanced readiness concepts;
- Reallocate, reassign, and redeploy forces in accordance with the NDS;
- Achieve a higher level of sustainable readiness;
- Develop a coordinated plan to strengthen allies and build partners;
- Reform and manage the 4th Estate and DoD;
- Focus the Department on China;
- Modernize the force—invest in game changing technologies;
- Establish realistic joint war games, exercises, and training plans; and,
- Develop a modern joint warfighting concept, and ultimately, doctrine.
I am proud to report that we’ve made real progress on these goals, with most on track to be accomplished on time. I will soon be posting an extended list of what we’ve achieved over the past year on the DoD website, but today I want to highlight several standouts, and celebrate what we have accomplished together.”
Secretary Esper’s full video message can be found here. The transcript can be found here.
Finance Friday Articles
Here are my favorites this week:
Target-Date Funds Are Performing Well. But Choosing One Can Be Harder Than You Think.
What’s the Best Diversifier for Stocks? counterbalanced by Do Treasuries Have a Place in a Modern Portfolio?
Why Your Money-Market Fund Isn’t as Safe as You Think
Here are the rest of the articles:
5 Tax Benefits of Investing in a Syndication
5 Thoughts on a World with No Yield
5 Ways to Retire With $5 Million by Age 55
7 Ways For Physicians to Make an Extra $1,000 a Month
Active vs Passive Real Estate Investing
Best Passive Income Ideas for 2020
Covid-19 and Physician Burnout: How I Turned My Plank Into A Runway
Everyone Who Thinks the Stock Market Is a Game Loses
Explaining the 2020 Stock Market
How Low is Your Passive Income Tax Rate? The Taxes on Passive Income Streams
How to Fix Your Financial Problems
Investment Return vs Savings Rate: Designing Your Portfolio Pt 2
Jack Bogle Was Wrong About ETFs
My Thoughts on the “Passive Investing Bubble”
Tax-Efficient Investing and Asset Location
The Importance of Investing Money in Residency
TL;DR: The Best Finance Books in One Sentence
Throwback Thursday Classic Post – Step 1 to Crush the TSP – Prepare
The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) is the military’s retirement account. Learning how to maximize its utility should be high on your financial priority list. I’m going to create a guide that will show you how to crush the TSP. Here’s Step 1 in that guide…
Step 1 to Crush the TSP – Prepare
Before you can crush the TSP, you have to do a little preparation. You don’t need to be Warren Buffet, but you need to understand the basics of investing and the TSP. Luckily, there are many ways to learn the basics. Here are a few:
- Read a book – Go to your library, search for a used book with AddAll (one of my favorite tools), or buy one new on Amazon. The easiest and quickest read to increase your basic investing knowledge is The Elements of Investing: Easy Lessons for Every Investor. Read this book. THAT’S AN ORDER! (unless you outrank me)
- Read an online introduction to investing – The one that I’d recommend is the Bogleheads Wiki. Here’s a link to their getting started page and their investing start-up kit. What’s the best part? All of this is free.
- Watch videos – The Bogleheads have a video series, which is also free.
- Read blog posts – My favorite TSP-specific blog posts are found at The White Coat Investor. You can read What You Need To Know About The TSP, The G Fund – A Free Lunch, or The Military’s New Blended Retirement System. I wrote the last one.
- Read the TSP website – The TSP website has a wealth of information.
Now you’ve got some homework. Once you’ve done as much of this as you can, move on to the 2nd step.
Navy Updates Face Covering Rules: What You Need to Know
WASHINGTON (NNS) — Since April 5, the Navy has required the wearing of cloth face coverings for all military, Navy civilian and contractors as well as family members while on DoD property, installations and facilities when maintaining proper social distancing between people isn’t possible.
Those rules, laid out in NAVADMIN message 100/20, remain in effect. Now, the Navy’s top uniformed personnel official, Vice Adm. John B. Nowell has issued further guidance in NAVADMIN 194/20 on face coverings which can be worn in uniform and how to get them.
“Initial face covering guidance facilitated immediate wear and availability of face coverings as one of several COVID-19 protective measures,” Nowell wrote. “Procurement, design and wear guidance was less defined pending the availability of more durable and conservative designed government procured face coverings.”
This initial flexibility was by necessity, Nowell said, to quickly put personal protective equipment (PPE) in the hands of Sailors and provided unit commanders flexibility in procuring face coverings through “multiple sources, designs, colors and durability,” allowing them to “rapidly field face coverings to their personnel.”
Since design type and configuration have been narrowed for wear with the uniform, here’s what you need to know about what can be worn and how to get them.
When worn in a Navy uniform, face coverings must still meet the standards set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and can be purchased by individuals or issued by commands.
Functionally, they must be made of at least two layers of cloth fabric and fit snugly and comfortably, covering the chin and extending over the bridge of the nose. They must not interfere with wearing eyeglasses or cause them to fog. Single-layer face covering already available through Defense Logistics Agency and Navy Exchange Service Command are acceptable and meet standards.
Fastening devices must be neutral in color and made of elastic, cord, string and loop. They must tie around the back of the ears or back of the head. It’s ok to use face coverings with barrel lock devices but only in areas where safety and Foreign Object Debris restrictions aren’t an issue.
Face coverings worn in uniform must overall be conservative in appearance, non-offensive and exhibit nothing that will bring discredit upon the wearer or the Navy.
Only face coverings made of plain neutral colors — specifically black, brown, tan, white, grey, green, blue can be worn. No lettering/wording, logos, symbols, prints or patterns are authorized.
The only exception is the option to wear coverings with camouflage patterns that match the Navy’s existing camouflage pattern uniforms.
Commands have the option of buying face coverings through Defense Logistics Agency or through open purchase if those available through the supply system “do not meet mission requirements,” Nowell wrote. Purchase through the Navy Exchange is also available.
For further details, see NAVADMIN 194/20 which contains stock numbers for face coverings in all seven authorized colors. In addition, the message contains contact information for both uniform and supply points of contact in this issue.
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