If you’ve decided to serve your country and enlist in the military, you’ve probably thought long and hard about which branch of the service is the right one for you and will help you to develop and evolve as a person and become the best version of yourself that you can possibly be.
It’s a difficult decision to make and one that isn’t always based on what the service can teach you, and the potential difference that you can make by serving your country.
More often than not other factors can have an impact on that choice and whether you want to enlist in the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Coast Guard, or the Air Force.
There might be other things that you want to do with your life after you leave the military. You might want to attend college, or a technical school, or travel. Or you might just want to serve your country first and discover who you really are when you leave the military.
With that in mind, you’ve probably thought long and hard about the amount of time that you’re happy to devote to a career in the military. This is why every branch of the service has a minimum enlistment period and is more than willing to let any potential recruit enlist for that period of time and leave once their contract and obligation to the service has been completed.
While the shortest enlistment period for any branch of the service used to be a standard eight years across the board, things have changed in the last couple of decades and the amount of time that you can enlist for has been considerably reduced.
Instead of the standard eight-year contract that you used to have to fulfill with the Air Force, you can now enlist for a period of four years for Active Duty and 2 years for the Guard and Reserves, which is the shortest, standard contract that the Air Force offers to all potential recruits.
Can You Enlist For Two Years In The Air Force?
Yes, but only in the Guard and Reserves. If you are going Active Duty, the minimum enlistment is 4 years. One thing to keep in mind is that the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration launched a new initiative called The National Call To Service.
It’s an incentive program that is designed to encourage anyone who wants to serve their country but isn’t sure about committing to a full four or six-year contract, to join the Air Force.
Under the terms and conditions of this program, anyone who wishes to serve can do so for a period of two years and then leave and move on, or if they choose to, can extend their contract.
There are, however, a number of conditions that apply to the two-year enlistment clause that any and all potential recruits should be aware of before they enlist.
After training, and serving a full fifteen months in the Air Force, a recruit can then either extend the contract or choose to leave. If they do choose to leave, a recruit must then join the active reserve list for a period of two years.
How Long Can You Serve In The Air Force?
While that is largely dependent on whether or not you want to extend your contract after your initial period of service has finished. If you’re looking for a lifelong career in the military, then the Air Force can and will provide the opportunity for you to do that.
Most “lifers” or long-serving personnel will retire with full benefits after a period of twenty years of service, but it is possible to serve for 30 years for enlisted. If you are a commissioned as an officer, you won’t have to leave until you reach the mandatory retirement age of sixty-four.
A case in point was Major General Alfred Flowers, who joined as an airman shortly after his seventeenth birthday and didn’t retire until he was sixty-four years old. Flowers is, to date, the longest-serving member of the Air Force having devoted forty-seven years of his life to the service of his country.
Can You Leave The Air Force After Four Years?
Despite the fact that any contract you sign with the Air Force that isn’t part of the joint initiative between the Department of Defense and Veterans Administration requires an eight hear obligation, you can leave the Air Force after serving four years of active duty.
However, if you do leave after four years, you will incur an inactive reserve duty status that means you must join the Air Force Reserve for a period of four years.
Even though you will be a member of the Air Force Reserve, as you’ll be on the inactive list, this obligation shouldn’t have any bearing on your life after you retire from active duty.