14 U.S.C. § 291
Section 291 · Voluntary retirement after twenty years service
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case Linfors v. United States (1982)
Most recently applied in Covill v. United States (October 1984)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Any regular commissioned officer who has completed twenty years’ active service in the Coast Guard, Navy, Army, Air Force, or Marine Corps, or the Reserve components thereof, including active duty for training, at least ten years of which shall have been active commissioned service, may, upon his own application, in the discretion of the President, be retired from active service.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1986—Pub. L. 99–348 struck out “, with retired pay of the grade with which retired” after “from active service”.
Retired Pay on or Prior to September 24, 1963
Savings provisions in section 5(g) of Pub. L. 88–130 providing that Pub. L. 88–130 does not affect the retired pay of anyone retired on or prior to Sept. 24, 1963, are set out as a note under section 211 of this title.