I am a 19K who recently reclassed to 89D. I have finished the school and am on my way out to my next duty station.

I am being told that I do not have the mandatory 27 months on my contract for when I leave this school. My retention NCO is telling me that I must reenlist for 3 years as opposed to extending for the 10 months I need. I extended once for ten months to get into the BEAR program, but after some research I found that I can extend up to 24 months total in my career.

Retention is telling me that I must reenlist vs. extend because I am "in my window", but I was in my window when I extended the first time. I stand to make almost nothing reenlisting under BEAR vs when I deploy in march, so obviously I want to extend.

I'm pretty sure I am being lied to, as I was lied to the first time I extended as my retention NCO said that bonuses were not available to BEAR program troops because the military was spending money to retrain us. Then I get to school and find that everyone got 2.0-3.5 kickers on their BEAR contracts and I got a fat 0.0.

My chain of command has told me that I should just reenlist, but I don't exactly find them impartial on this as the unit needs to make retention numbers.

I am supposed to PCS in a week so any help with this would be appreciated. I would rather find out and verify on my own than get IG involved and put an indefinite hold on my PCS.

thanks for any help!