Has anyone gone AD to reserve and back to AD? How does it affect retirement? For example, if I go reserves at 12 years, then spend 4 years there, and return for AD for 6, would I be eligible for AD retirement?

Basically, I'm thinking about going into the reserves to focus on family for a while. Kind of debating the best path forward - either staying reserves till I can retire, or coming back on AD at some point. Obvious benefits to get an AD retirement are a big consideration.

Went from active duty to the National Gaurd to an AGR job. Works the same as going back on active duty.

If you have 12 years in you will be paid as if you have 12 years of service. Each year in the reserves counts towards pay. At 13 years you will be paid for 13, then at 14 you will be paid for 14 years of service, etc.

Given your example of 12 years active and 4 years reserves...when you go back on active duty you will have 12 years. Then however many points IPPS-A says you have towards active duty time will be applied towards your time and a new retirement date will be calculated based off those points.

I have 18 years in for pay/ time in grade. I get paid as a W3 with 18 years. My retirement date however, is 2032 not 2027. The points I accrued in 6 years in the guard (to include a trip to Kosovo) only came out to about 2 years of service. It is a little disheartening to realize how little your drill, schools, annual training, etc. count towards retirement points.

Apparently I will get some time back at retirement because I have a lot of points that dont count towards active duty retirement, but to count towards overall retirement.

I would not leave active duty. If my position had not been eliminated I would not have left. Additionally going back to active duty may not be as easy as you think. Might be easier to get an active duty release from the reserves and based on your MOS, I know some folks that tried and couldnt get a release.

Look at going directly to an AGR job. Active duty but primarily administrative 8-4 job. You can re=class for this if needed.

If you can get a ARNG AGR job, it should mean less major moves, although you may still move within the state.

Worst case, stay in a reserve component for the health insurance. You'll get a decent retirement check around 60 yo, and tricare retired reserve. 12 years is a lot to completely walk away from.

Also, look at fed service. You can buy back the military time for your retirement.

Take this with a grain of salt, because I am pulling this out of my ass and honestly don't know.

My guess is that you will still need 20 years on regular active duty and that the reserve time will be tacked on at the end using the calculation below to add to your final years of service.

But let's pretend that it counts towards the 20 years. The way reserve time is converted to active duty time is that you get 2 points for each day of weekend drill (48 points if you did all of them, if that's possible), 15 points just for being affiliated with the reserves, and 1 point per day while doing your two weeks on active duty (let's say 14 points). In this scenario you did 77 points. Divide that by 360 and you get .21 years of service for that year. Four years of that and you have .84 years of service, which is about 10 months. So maybe you could retire 10 months shy of 20 years of regular active duty time.

But probably not. My guess is it would be tacked on at the end, so you'd get credited with 20.84 years of service after you did 20 regular active duty years.

InfantryAg said:

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Look at going directly to an AGR job. Active duty but primarily administrative 8-4 job. You can re=class for this if needed.

If you can get a ARNG AGR job, it should mean less major moves, although you may still move within the state.

Worst case, stay in a reserve component for the health insurance. You'll get a decent retirement check around 60 yo, and tricare retired reserve. 12 years is a lot to completely walk away from.

Also, look at fed service. You can buy back the military time for your retirement.

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12 years needs to be treated as a sunk cost.

Independently evaluate the options going forward and decide on finance and family.

I know my options aren't OPs, but leaving the mil flying world at 12 years absolutely out paces a pension

I did six years AD, then another 15 in the ANG. I had to fly one or two nights per week and weekends to make my semiannual training requirements. I had a job offer that would have made continued participation in the Guard difficult. Fortunately, I passed on that opportunity, partially because I had the idea of lifetime medical care in the back of my mind. As a retied Guard/Reservist, my retired pay and benefits did not begin at that time, until I was 60.

Times changed when Clinton did away with those retirement medical benefits, but Congress honored the promise made and implemented Tricare for Life. My wife had open-heart surgery a couple of months ago for a heart valve replacement. She spent 10 days in the hospital.

I am a little surprised that we have not seen any bills yet from her surgery and related but anticipate my share with Medicare primary and TFL secondary being zero.

That alone was worth giving them 20+ years.

Thanks for the input. I'm Navy, and have essentially 2 MOS options to go into the reserves. One of which has a pretty good bonus to go with it - but harder to get into since so many people do it.

I think I could probably switch over the guard, hadn't really thought about that. But I can make a lot more as a civilian than full time guard (or full time active duty).

The Tricare for life is a big reason I'm considering staying. Since I opted for the blended retirement system, I won't be walking away with 0. But of course it isn't the same as a full pension. While Tricare isn't what it used to be, the way healthcare is going in this country makes it worth more and more every day.



But I'll try reaching out to a national guard or air national guard recruiter and see what options I have.

Im a pilot, that greatly influences my opinion of going traditional guard. It is a significant time commitment. Dealing with bosses that wanted to me to explain why I was gone again became a pain. My last annual review before going AGR ended with "now let's analyze how many days you have been gone for military duty this year."

Im gone now more than on active duty.

For the most part Im happier than being a traditional Gaurdsmen.

CharlieBrown17 said:

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InfantryAg said:

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Look at going directly to an AGR job. Active duty but primarily administrative 8-4 job. You can re=class for this if needed.

If you can get a ARNG AGR job, it should mean less major moves, although you may still move within the state.

Worst case, stay in a reserve component for the health insurance. You'll get a decent retirement check around 60 yo, and tricare retired reserve. 12 years is a lot to completely walk away from.

Also, look at fed service. You can buy back the military time for your retirement.

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12 years needs to be treated as a sunk cost.

Independently evaluate the options going forward and decide on finance and family.

I know my options aren't OPs, but leaving the mil flying world at 12 years absolutely out paces a pension

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I should have clarified... I was saying full-time reserves is likely a better option than getting off AD, going in the reserves for a few years and then going back active.

Sunk cost depending on your other options. Commercial pilot money is better than what an infantry guy is qualified for.

12 years being a sunk cost is certainly more true, with the blended retirement (I had forgotten about that). Prior to that though, most service members can't walk into another job and retire in 8 years, with medical.

Finishing out in the reserves, knowing I will have medical coverage gives me a bunch of retirement options. I never factored in the retirement money, so it's just gravy for traveling in better style.

TSP is a huge game changer.

I was given the option in ROTC to decide high 3 vs blended. If I got out right now at just under 8 years TIS and never added another dollar to a 401K, I would have double the investment required to safely withdraw what my theoretical pension is worth at 59.

It's obviously not the same as having that money immediately at 45 after 20 years TIS but still huge and gives people so much more flexibility

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My last annual review before going AGR ended with "now let's analyze how many days you have been gone for military duty this year."

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That's a huge USERRA violation.