quote:

Originally posted by Belgian Blue:

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Just what I thought. A lemming.

What are you talking about? Do you even know what that means? It doesn't seem so. My god, you're juvenile.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

Are you a five year old?

Apparently not yet.

Good grief, looks like someone is off their meds!

Stop being an ass.

Para has expressed his frustration many times over about people injecting politics into discussions, where it doesn't belong .

Belgian Blue, cut it out. One more post in this thread gets you thirty days on Moderated Status.

You're throwing a tantrum and you've also dragged politics into this thread. Calm the fuck down.

Thank you max628 (& all others that have served our country) so much. We wouldn’t be the USA without you folks coming forward!

Best thoughts on getting the answers you need, the gov is so big. Here’s to getting answers!

As mentioned, there are a lot of retired military who are willing to help. I worked with an Annapolis grad and retired Marine colonel who was planning on specifically helping vets with military issues like this. He was a very good civilian attorney and I imagine there are a lot like him.

Edited to add that I'd do the Google for retired military attorneys in your area.

quote:

Originally posted by max628:
Here is where the confusion starts, I logged into the "My pers" website, which by the way is not user friendly by no means, ...

Don't have any advice or help, but only commiseration

The U.S. Government, apparently including the military branches, seems to have an unerring ability to hire the worst possible contractors on the planet to develop their web sites--probably spending far too much money for them in the process

The VA has veteran's service representatives. The will assist you.

If you weren't so touchy, I'd point out that you weren't in the military. You were in the Air Force.

When I went thru TAP, VFW was there in full force.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Are you a five year old?

Nope. A five year old doesn’t have such a hair trigger.
Somebody needs a nap, a switch to decaf, or something.

With 3 deployments, shouldn't that drop the age to 57 instead of 59?

I'll be going through this in as soon as 7.5 years but if I can make it to LTC, I'm going to stick around as long as I can.

max628 - I did this not too long ago for my ANG retirement - should still be current info. There was good advice on this thread but some was not specific or relevant (for ANG/AFRes).

First - establish your Reduced Retired Pay Age with ARPC. You can scan and send them copies of your deployment orders through the vpc dashboard (DD 214s will work too). It’s not time in theater - it’s how many 90 day blocks of contingency orders added together you were on after January of ‘08. I only had one - most of my several sandbox rotations didn’t count since they were before ‘08. You may get surprised and find out that ARPC has already calculated your RRPA (a few friends told me this happened to them).

As it sounds like you are pay eligible now - don’t wait for this next step. I copied this from a retiree newsletter and it is exactly what I did - “To apply for Reserve retired pay, complete the ARPC Form 83 and DD Form 2656. Both must be received by HQ ARPC to establish the retired pay account. These forms should be submitted at least 30 days, but not earlier than 4 months before the retired pay effective date (normally when you reach age 60).” You can find both forms online and print them.

The Form 83 is half a page. The Form 2656 is more involved. The biggest mistake is the member not getting a witness signature for his/her signature on it. If you have a spouse and select anything other than full survivor benefits, that person has to sign off on it in front of a notary. You need no documentation to send with this form. Use the most current version - ask me how I know (appears to be October 2018). ARPC will have everything they need to process your request with these two forms.

After ARPC processes your request, THEY send the info to DFAS. It takes a few months total - but one day you will go online to check your bank account and your first check will be there. It’s a good feeling.

Hope this helps.

OVW

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
With 3 deployments, shouldn't that drop the age to 57 instead of 59?

I'll be going through this in as soon as 7.5 years but if I can make it to LTC, I'm going to stick around as long as I can.

Not all services do year long deployment
They rule currently is for every 3 months deployed you get 3 months off the retirement age. Plus there are some other fine print stuff, so sometimes you can do for example 3 short deployments ( the Air Force is well know for doing some short 90 day deployments) and the way it is calculated may not drop the retirement age much ( you still get all the points however)

It is a little late for this, but I know the army ( at least before COVID) had reserve retirement conferences you could attend to help you plan all this.
I am looking forward to going to one soon as I am about 4 years off from being eligible

My experience (and the process) for Naval Reserve Retirement mirrors wcb6092's almost exactly as to paperwork that would need to be submitted (and hopefully Personnel provided you copies on seperation) along with a letter requesting activation of benefits. I also submitted six months out from date of elibility, and was advised that NavPers was running three months behind. Not aware of a group to help, but getting everything together and into the process several months in advance is crucial. Best wishes!

Visit the Retirement Services Officer at any military installation and they can process your Retirement paperwork. I retired in May 2016 and if recall correctly it took about 2 months for the paperwork to get approved and I started drawing a check.