Yes, but not if they take any Variable Separation Incentive Pay (VISP). Here is the kicker - they are pressuring people to take "something" and get eliminated now, or they can attempt to keep their jobs, and get nothing very soon.
The VSIP pay is a joke - the DoD is currently offering (at MAX!) the same amount the offered in 1994, and it is subject to Federal, state, and local taxes.
Moreover, this is what the DoD is doing: they are targeting so many jobs for elimination that disabled vets are targeted as well. They give the vets (30% or more VA rating) with a suffix code to their Group based on tenure, but won't elaborate about what it will do for any disabled vet. In other words, your job is still gone if they want it gone. There is no job protection for any disabled veteran.
Nice, huh?
Glad the illegals and the "green jobs" criminals are still getting Billions.
Typically a federal agency will try to make them as narrow as possible so that only somebody else's friends get laid off.
That's usually what trips them up ~ you just go back through job rosters for a decade and you can find all the little social relationships that cause otherwise honest people to turn into street thugs and thieves in the face of a RIF.
One case you need to cite dates back to the mid 1980s when Marvin Runyon was PMG. He'd come to the job from a friendship with Senator Alexander (a worthless cousin of mine) and his experience destroying the TVA personnel development process (brother in laws were welcome, you weren't, but Carvin Marvin's buddies were).
So, Carvin Marvin got the idea he could ignore the law when it came to RIFs at USPS simply because he could ~ and other managers had done so before him.
This time they screwed up because they started with a layoff of 5 and 10 pt veterans in the top management ranks.
Several headquarters employees had earlier won cases at MSPB so those were hauled out as precedents. A lawyer or two was hired. BINGO, USPS LOST IT ALL and ended up under the special obervation of MSPB for a couple of decades (and I don't think that's over yet).
DOD folks will be facing the same sort of thing, which is why you need to review the USPS cases on file at MSPB and see what rights you really have. You can safely ignore the FPM and the Reduction In Force Handbook because your management is going to ignore them as well. What they won't ignore are the MSPB veteran related cases at USPS.
So, good luck. I won a few times and so can you. Death to management (cheaters) and their running dog lackeys ~ may they all be RIFFED first!