For decades, Navy officials would turn on and off with early-out opportunities to help the Navy reach its mandated manpower levels, mostly during drawdowns. times the service was drawing down. 

Not anymore.

Navy officials have now made early outs a "program of record" and use it to target specific It’s now a highly targeted program that looks to ease overmanning in in specific ratings, paygrades and year groups combinations where the Navy has too many sailors.

The program was started in 2014, offering a ticket home up to 16-months before enlistments would normally expire. Since then, 816 sailors have been approved to leave active-duty with an average of 14 months shaved off their enlistments.

As of Oct. 1, there were 755 offerings in 21 different ratings. Both of those numbers had doubled since the program was brought back last year, when 378 sailor quotas across 10 ratings were offered initially.

Expect that trend to continue in 2016 as more sailors learn of the program and officials find more quotas inside overmanned skills.

About Mark D. Faram

Mark D. Faram is a former reporter for Navy Times. He was a senior writer covering personnel, cultural and historical issues. A nine-year active duty Navy veteran, Faram served from 1978 to 1987 as a Navy Diver and photographer.

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