Off topic, info for ROTC and academy students

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I learned an odd tidbit about reserve points and college ROTC/Academy training.

 

Normal college school year time does not count toward retirement, but the summer training time can be counted toward reserve points.

 

If you are a reservist, there is a rather complicated set of bistro math that determines how many years you've earned toward retirement and how many points you have earned over your entire reserve career. Summer training periods can be counted toward this reserve point total. The problem is that by the time you are calculating reserve points, you have probably long since thrown away any copies of orders demonstrating your summer training.

 

So if you have a kid who is or was recently in college ROTC or an Academy, suggest that they set up a file with copies of these orders. They might thank you in a couple decades when that allows them to boost their reserve retirement pay. (I wish that I'd kept mine.)

[Mrs Mungo]

So if you have a kid who is or was recently in college ROTC or an Academy, suggest that they set up a file with copies of these orders. They might thank you in a couple decades when that allows them to boost their reserve retirement pay. (I wish that I'd kept mine.)

 

This is very sage advice. My hubby has a massive binder with every set of orders and every course completion certificate that he has ever earned. He's had to pull things out of it to send to DoD/branch more than once.

 

eta: Also, every leave form.

[asta]

We just had our retirement approved last week. :001_huh:

 

It is active duty, not reserve, and our last day isn't until next year. BUT - and this is a BIG but - he had delayed entry time, enlisted time, ROTC that was contracted-but-not-yet-commissioned-time, Commissioned time... you get the picture. Computing his "time in service" was an abject nightmare for the guy whose job it was to do it.

 

And the guy INSISTED that this, that, or the other thing "didn't count". Oh yes it DID. We had the regulations with us and copies of everything (I'm very OCD about keeping copies of every scrap of paper). I had pieces of paper DH didn't even know he'd ever gotten in the mail. LOL.

 

The only thing that doesn't count for people "nowadays" is the enlisted delayed entry time - they got rid of that. We're just so old, it still did for DH. They flat out didn't count the time he did as a "cadet lieutenant" while in ROTC (actually worked as a Lieutenant on active duty during the summer between junior and senior year - this is not the same as reserve training). There was no way to fight that one.

 

In the end it was completely worth it. His "for pay" retirement ended up over 2 years higher than his "years in service" retirement. (25+ vs 23).

 

Keep EVERYTHING.

 

 

a

[Liz CA]

Well, if ds goes in - he is thinking very hard about it, I will forward him all military advice from this board!