Military Families
jess932211
member
Lifers/ reenlistment
jess932211
member
So DH signed a 5 year contract which is up 2013. If he re-enlists he'll be in for 9 years at that point and I sort of feel like we should then stay for the next 11+ years and be in until he decides to retire. We have to discuss everything still.
But I guess my question is for those who are in for life, at what point did your family decide you were in until retirement? After how many re-enlistments did you decide to stay in?
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Re: Lifers/ reenlistment
DH has done 25 years and we have 2+ more to go till retirement. We have stayed in past the 20 mark because you have to stay in 3 years to retire at grade...and the retirment for an E-9 at 28 years is nothing to sneeze at.
While we were not together at the time (my dad retired after 24 years too DH originally was only going to do one 4-year enlistment and be done. But he married and had a kid and got stationed in Germany.
At that point (even with going off to war) he fell in love with the perks of the military. While the base pay sucks and the other official benes do not really make up for it, the "perks" have.
Now, I always joke about marrying him for his TRICARE For Life....but damn it even Congress do not get the TFL Medicare wrap around that we do. Nor will we ever have to worry about the Part D Donut Hole (sure they attempted to fix this with the new hc bill, but until it actually goes into effect, I wont believe it).
This alone is a benefit to stay in for. If I could have, I woud have.
same for us.
I guess we're the exception to the rule. DH had served 9 years and had been back in civilian life for over 3 years when we met. It wasn't until well after we had DS1 (DH had been out almost 10 years by then) that we even discussed it as an option. For DH it was more for the comradarie, a retirement plan, and better insurance that lured him back which turned out to be a good thing since we have had DS2 and expecting DS3 three years later. If it wasn't for the military we would be scamblilng to put kids in daycare (don't know how we could afford that) just so I could work to help pay for health insurance.
My DH already had 15 years in when I met him and we are now at 22 years with 35 more months to go until the 25 year mark and he is done. The only reason we are doing 25 years is because he became a Warrant Officer at the 19 year mark. So we knew we had to do at least 2 years to get the officer retirement pay. Well then a year later he got picked up for direct commission and was promoted to JG (junior grade LT.). As a JG you are automatically promoted to LT at 30 months (which happens in Jan. for DH), so we have to do 2 years from that date to get his retirement pay at LT. But since he has to transfer before the 2 years is up, he has to do 1 year at his new duty station before retirement package can be put in.
I asked my DH what made him stay in past 10 years (once past that point you might as well stay in to get the retirement check). He was going to get out at 9 years (he was in the Navy at the time) and applied for the US Marshalls and was not picked up because he didn't have his Bachelors degree. He wanted to get out of the Navy because they were going to send him to an AirCraft Carrier and he didn't want to deploy for those long periods of time again. He had been in the submarines for 3 years and he knew what that was like. So he approached the Coast Guard and they said they would take him in and get him back to FL to be near family. He has been in the Coast guard for the past 12 years and loves it. It was the best decision he could have ever made. He has completed his Bachelors through the Coast Guard and his Masters last summer. He is now working on some certifications in Homeland Security and Cyber Crimes. He probably never would have gotten this much education without all the military programs to pay for school, not even using his GI Bill money.
So now he will retire at 25 years and collect that check each month and he plans on seeking a job with I.C.E or C.B.P near our home area. These are high paying postions, but because he is already part of Homeland Security in the Coast Guard and has his degrees and certifications he has a good shot of getting one of this jobs and then do another years in the civil service and collect a second check when we do finally retire in our early 60's.