Let me tell you how crazy it was. As I was getting ready to leave Ft. Knox for Embry-Riddle, I made a trip to Daytona Beach to find a place for my family to stay for a year. This was 75, mind you. The Army had gone through a massive RIF in 73 and another more selective one had just been announced in 75. They both hit the Captain ranks hard. An Infantry Captain at E-R, who was just completing a two year degree program, told me about two of his friends who were doing the same thing at Tampa. Both were being RIF'd. Both had been to the year long Infantry Officer Advanced Course before attending a fully funded two year degree completion program. They obviously took their $15,000 and went on their way. These were not isolated cases and it appeared that one of the Army's hands didn't know what the other one was doing. I watched the Army lose a lot of good people.
A few years later I worked for a scumbag who had made Major without a degree. He received his second pass-over for LTC and got lost in the mountains somewhere for about 45 days. This allowed him to get within the 18 year gate before he was officially notified of the pass over. He beat the system and retired a Major.
"These were not isolated cases"
For sure. I was an interested observer/mil.spouse in the 70s and didn't understand a lot of the things that happened. I asked hubby why big bucks would be paid for remodelling a commissary on a base that had a definite date for closure....response was that funds requested & allocated got spent. The RIF in 73 seemed to have no rhyme or reason....but then, those were the years when everyone heard this as an answer:
"Well, there's the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way"