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Hello ALL,
Just wanted to put my for what it's worth 2 cents info on here.
Med boarded twice. First time for Spinal Fusion L4/L5, L5/S1. Pain radiating to everything below the belt, numbness in legs, etc......
This was at 16 years TIS. Lasted almost two years. Came back return to duty. I was happy as I wanted to get to 20 years. PT program in AF came along. Hmmmm... guess what I scored? At least I had a Commander with back issues who understood and chose not to take negative action. PT failures caused another Board to commence at my 18 1/2 year mark. Spinal Fusion failed, Back condition had worsened. Also added three more ruptured discs in my neck causing chest pains, numb left arm. I was actually rushed to the hospital for possible Cardiac condition due to these symptoms. That's when they found my Ascending Aortic Aneurysm. Lucky thing actually as any further PT would have probably killed me. Anyhow, Med Board dragged on for more than a year, then Informal suddenly came back with around 6 months to go before my 20. HOLY SHIT!!! They offered me 50%. No way I was taking it!!! I requested a Formal Board, which in turn caused re-evaluation because all the evals were older than the AFI allowed. There is a strong possibility that I already knew this would happen, because I had printed out every REG, AFI, etc that applied to me, but that cannot be confirmed or denied Getting a medical appointment usually took about a month, getting the Doc to write it up, yah about a month, you get the point. This allowed me to get to ten weeks over 20. The re-evals were finished and The Formal board was scheduled. I then retracted my request for the formal and accepted the 50%. I was medically retired two months later. Couple of things from my story: 1) Help yourself because no one else has your interest in mind. Get the Regs, AFI's, CFR-38, know what kinda doo doo you are into. There are very few experts out there, and you will get screwed. 2) MAKE IT TO 20 IF POSSIBLE!!!

I was not greedy and happy to receive 50% from the AF, as I had taken the REDUX at 15 years and was only supposed to get 40% for retirement. Now the REDUX does not apply and I get 50% of my high-36. The only thing is I get is 1% lower than everyone else on the COLA adjustments until age 62. But lately "WHAT COLA ADJUSTMENTS?" so no biggie. I just got my VA rating at 100% and, BECAUSE I MADE IT TO 20 YEARS, I will be getting full CDRP with Retro back until my retirement date.

I am now looking at a helping out others in the AF (not against other services, just not educated about them) who are being med boarded, because there is no one else. PEBLOs can be OK or completely useless. SO if anyone needs help finding something, shoot me a message.

Jim