The War Department in April 1945, surveyed 20,000 troops in Europe to determine the fairest way to demobilize the US Army. The vast majority of the respondents said, look at the individual soldiers, not the units they served in. Thus, the US Army developed a point system. You got a point for each month you were in the Army and one point for each month overseas. There were five bonus points for each campaign star, combat decoration and purple heart. You also got 12 points if you had a child under the age of 18, back in the United States. For men that were conscripted in 1942 and 1943, they could expect to be demobilized sometime in the fall of 1945. If you had 85 points, you could expect to be home for Christmas.
The US Army expected the war with Japan to last well into 1946. They began to ship low point individuals back to the United States, but did not discharge those men from the Army. They fully intended to ship them to the western Pacific for the invasion of Japan. However, the sudden surrender of Japan in August wrecked this plan. A lot of low point individuals were quickly demobilized and the shipping that would have taken them to Okinawa was diverted to the Atlantic. This turned what looked like a sensible plan into an unholy mess. There were riots in France and the Philippines and millions of angry parents and spouses wrote to Congress to complain about this sudden release of low point individuals. In the end, logistics ruled the day and OPeration Magic Carpet got most of the high point vets back from Europe, before the end of 1945.
Source: "The American Soldier" by Samuel Stouffer (1949) pp 522-530.