Military Financial Independence

Let’s wrap up the “Six months before retirement” series of posts with a few odds & ends on how to spend your last days around the office.

Various groups at your command will want to say their goodbyes separately from your retirement ceremony. This usually involves a lunch or even a dinner party. Since they’re doing all the work (and you’re just showing up) it’s hard to refuse. You’ll have to work with the group leader to decide what’s appropriate for you and for them.

If you’re an extrovert who loves parties then you’ll enjoy yourself. However, it may also be scheduled during a particularly busy and stressful time along with your physical exams, your retirement checklist, and maybe even a move out of your home. Unless you’re an extrovert, you may feel that the farewell gatherings are getting out of hand.

Keep talking with your friends and those group leaders. Make your desires simple and clear. If you feel that the affair is an additional burden on your retirement preparations, then say so! One alternative would be to schedule it a week or two before your ceremony. Another alternative, especially if you’re remaining in the area after retirement, would be to have it near the end of your terminal leave or even after you’ve retired. Have it at a local restaurant or park so that people won’t be interrupted at the office. You’ll have been away from the command for a while, so they’ll want to see how retirement suits you. You’ll have new stories to tell, and so will they. It’s a great way to relax with the group without feeling the pressure to get things done.

Another common farewell issue is retirement gifts. Most retirees (and, frankly, their commands) would prefer a simple plaque or shadowbox. Others may want a more significant memento, or the command may have a custom of “awarding” a gag gift. Once again you’ll have to make your desires known, especially to your friends who can take care of the details. For those who don’t particularly care or who prefer to avoid the entire issue, you could ask that the command make a donation to a military charity of your choice. It’s a simple yet noble gesture that will set the tone for your whole retirement.

Another surprise to many military retirees is the amount of time you’ll spend saying goodbye. Between the retirement ceremony and the command’s farewell you may feel that you’ve done enough: “So retire, already!” But a substantial portion of your day may be spent with people who drop by to chat for a few minutes, to figure out what you want for a part of a ceremony or a farewell, or even to ask a favor.

Be alert to these “chance” encounters. It’s more than sharing a few war stories and setting up a tee time or a surf session. If you’re a supervisor, you may be asked to write a number of recommendation or endorsement letters. This is your last chance to see that your troops get what they deserve. Like the retirement physical, it’s much easier to do a good deed for someone while you’re in the billet and wearing the rank. In a few weeks you’ll be “just another retiree” whose thoughts may not carry any weight with an award committee or a selection board. When you present the situation to one of your perpetual fence-sitters who’d be a great candidate for a special program or a commission, you may be able to get them to commit to a decision in exchange for your recommendation.

A final note about your final day in the office: don’t get ambushed. A prankster may have been planning something for months, or your chain of command may have “just one more thing”. If you’ve been keeping up with your retirement checklist then you should be able to finish the last item well before your final day. On your absolute last day in the office you should show up on time and maybe even say a few goodbyes, but arrange to have an appointment or other reason to leave early– before lunch or even before 10 AM. Go to lunch but don’t go back. Get your business done, finish your list, and go home!

You’ve been waiting years for this exit interview!  It’s finally time to tell your chain of command exactly what you think of them!!  All of your weapons are ready to fire, the missiles are ready for launch, and you have tons of bombs to drop. You’ve been holding back far too long and the military can’t possibly survive without your opinion of what’s broken, who should be fired, and how to fix everything.

Um, not so fast.  Take a deep breath, relax, and cool down a little.  Get that attitude well out of your system before you sit down with your chain of command.

Be classy– don’t be rude or crass or disrespectful. Although exit interviews are a great opportunity to tell your bosses and co-workers what you really think of them as you exit the smoking rubble, you don’t want to be remembered for this poor behavior. It’s doubtful that you’ll make anything better by hurling these hand grenades as you leave, and you certainly don’t want to make things worse than they already are for your friends & coworkers.

Besides, why were you saving it for the exit interview? Talking trash is also a confession that you were unwilling to deal with your issues when you were working with these people.  If you haven’t tried to fix it by now then the exit interview is the wrong place to start.  Focus on your new life, not your old scores.

Keep your comments on the command’s accomplishments and on what helped you succeed. If your bosses are doing a good job then they need to know that it’s working. Emphasize that anyone can do your job– especially your relief– if they have the right tools and if they’re set up to succeed. You might even want to talk about where the current projects could go or what other challenges should be tackled.

Be happy about your new life, but don’t go over the top. As you approach retirement you may be surprised to be lectured about it by jealous bosses and co-workers. Self-centered people won’t celebrate your retirement — they’ll feel sorry or envious that it’s not theirs.

They won’t compliment you or ask what you’re going to do the first day– they’ll say that they wish they knew how to invest like you did. Even worse, your boss may decide that you’re making a serious mistake and might spend the entire exit interview trying one more time to fix you before it’s too late. Share your plans but don’t feel that you have to justify them or account for your time. Agree to consider everyone’s helpful suggestions after you’ve taken a little time off.

Prepare Your Answers to Common Questions:

Before you start your exit interviews, decide how you’re going to respond to the following questions:

“Can you stay a couple days/weeks/months longer?”

“Um, thanks for your offer, but we’ve already made plans and reservations that would be difficult and expensive to change.”

“If we have a question after you leave, where can we reach you?”

“Here’s my phone number and my e-mail address, but we’ll be traveling and it may take a day or two to respond.”

“Can you come in for lunch next week?”

You’re on your own here.  If you don’t want to socialize with these people at that time then it might be possible to reschedule for a date after your retirement, or else you “have to sort out some schedule conflicts”.  Or maybe your boss was just trying to be polite and not really expecting you to accept the offer.

“Can you help us find a volunteer to…?”

Again this one is up to you, but eventually these people are going to have to figure out how to survive without your advice and presence.

“We know you’re retiring, but can you to come in to take care of…?”

Bad idea.  You’re either on duty at the command (and getting paid for it) or you’re retired.

“Hey, you’ll have plenty of time on your hands! Can you help us with…?”

If you can’t handle this one now, then you’re going to have a really hard time with your family, relatives, and neighbors!

The exit interview is not the place to fix things that you could have helped fix while you were on active duty.  However, there may have been issues that couldn’t be resolved without hurting others or causing even worse problems.  Once you’re out of the command, there’s nothing holding you back from blowing the whistle to higher authority.

Hold off a few weeks before taking this step, however, because the whole issue may seem trivial with some rest and a new retirement perspective. If it wasn’t a problem worth addressing when you were attached to that command, or if you couldn’t resolve it with your active-duty resources, then it’s probably not appropriate to try to correct it after you’ve left it.

The Retirement Ceremony

Some of you have been waiting for decades and you’ve exhaustively planned every minute of the event. Enjoy yourselves! You know what you want to do.

Some of you are retiring unexpectedly, or at least you haven’t thought much about your ceremony. Maybe you feel that the command owes you their appropriate recognition and validation for all your years of sacrifice, and you’d like as much ceremony as you’re entitled to. If that’s the case then please talk about your ceremony with your command as soon as your request has been approved. A command can’t be expected to figure out what every member wants included in their ceremony, and a number of honors may take weeks or even months to arrange– especially if they’re signed by an elected official or a celebrity.

A very small minority of you may not want any ceremony at all. That’s your privilege, but you may encounter significant resistance. Your command wants you to have a fair opportunity to enjoy a ceremony without intimidation or coercion. Your bosses, who have probably thought about their own retirement ceremonies occasionally, may have a hard time believing that you don’t share their enthusiasm for pomp & protocol.

They may feel that you’re mistakenly passing up the opportunity to celebrate your achievements and to bring closure to a long, distinguished career. Some commands (you know the type) may be concerned that you’ll change your mind about the ceremony and blame them for not accommodating your desires. They don’t want bitter retirees starting Congressional inquiries.

If you’d prefer to avoid a retirement ceremony then it’s best to express that sentiment early and often. Some retirees cite personal reasons while others prefer to avoid the extensive time, effort, and expense. Your command may feel obligated to give you a number of opportunities to change your mind, so be firm and consistent. Your preferences may never be understood, but eventually they’ll be accepted.

The timing of your ceremony may be difficult to arrange, especially if you’re bringing guests from long distances, but it’s best to arrange your turnover and leave so that your retirement ceremony is the last time you’re at the command. The people who say “Goodbye!” to you on Friday may be a bit nonplussed to see you again on Monday morning, and you may be perceived to have trouble letting go of the uniform.  Instead of a long, awkward, drawn-out departure, make the retirement ceremony your final appearance.  Your true friends will know where to find you.

Besides, if you show up at that place again after your ceremony, they may just try to put you back to work for a few hours…

Next time you’re chatting with a bunch of veterans, ask them how their discharge physicals went– and listen to their groans of pain. But seriously, take a few minutes to ask these people what they wish they’d done differently during their physicals. Heed their advice and don’t repeat their oversights!

The basic advice hasn’t changed:  start early (at least six months before your terminal leave or retirement date) and be ready to spend several months taking care of other issues before you’re finally finished.

The Department of Defense performs your physical to make sure that you’re healthy and that you receive appropriate medical treatment before you’re discharged. It’s their legal due diligence to prove that they took care of you before you left active duty.  Frankly, it’s more for their benefit than yours.  You, on the other hand, need to make sure that you understand every aspect of your physical condition and correct as many things as possible during active duty before you have to do it through the Veteran’s Administration or Tricare. It’s the same idea as your other retirement paperwork:  get it right the first time or spend months of retirement trying to do it on your own.

When you fill out your physical’s paperwork and start your exams, you or the medical staff may discover new questions or old unresolved issues. Some can be handled immediately but others may require additional time and testing. It’s quite possible to need several months to chase down all the consultations with other doctors, to schedule the complicated examinations like MRIs or CAT scans, and to make a final assessment of the treatment. It’s an unpleasant process, but it’s even more excruciating if you delay.

Prepare yourself before you make your first appointment. Read your entire medical record from start to finish and go all the way back to your entrance exam. Make sure you understand every entry, especially any conditions or injuries or illnesses that may follow you into retirement. If you don’t understand the entries then research the vocabulary on the Internet or ask your shipmates. If you had a medical problem in uniform then you can confidently assume that it could grow to be an even bigger problem in retirement. Make a list of your issues and questions and be ready to spend the time discussing them with technicians, medical staff, and doctors.

When you’re completing the physical’s tests and exams, make sure that you understand everything added to your record. If something doesn’t look right, or if it isn’t thoroughly explained to you, then there’s a problem. An innocuous oversight now may miss an existing condition that could grow worse during your retirement, or it could even result in the denial of a disability claim.  Ask to see the instructions or the references to make sure you understand the issues.

It’s quite likely that you’ll leave the exam with a list of consultations, extra appointments, and more testing. Researching the issues and evaluating your treatment options could take a serious chunk out of your final few months. If you start early then you’ll have time to handle the inevitable delays, seek other opinions, and make thoughtful decisions.

Even if all of your questions were answered during the exams and tests, ask your doctor again during the final exam. Bring your list, work it all the way through, take good notes, and don’t get put off or distracted. If your doctor doesn’t seem to have the time for you then ask for another appointment– or another doctor! No one can take more care than you to make sure that your exam is correct, that all issues have been examined, and that you’re in the best possible condition before you retire. I can’t stress strongly enough how important it is to chase down these nagging questions before you complete the physical and retire.

If you’re fortunate enough to be attached to a command with its own independent-duty medical staff, give them an extra-nice favor in exchange for a review of your discharge physical. You might not recognize an incomplete entry or a missing signature, but they’ll know what to look for. This can help avoid errors and delays during your final checkout.

Determining disability ratings and dealing with the Veteran’s Administration are far beyond the scope of this book. If your separation physical discovers a condition that may lead to extensive medical care or even disability concerns, then seek professional help from the medical facility. You may even need to review your rights with your military legal staff. What seems to be a straightforward retirement may become mired in months of medical evaluation boards, disability rating reviews, and maybe even time on the Temporary Disabled Retired List. No one wants this disruption during the planning for the next phase of their life, but you have decades in front of you and the process may be worth tens of thousands of dollars in medical benefits. The person who you’ll become in 30 or 40 years will be heartily glad that you persevered.

It may even be possible that you’ll have to seek help from those who have already gone through the process.  Talk to your nearest Veterans Administration office (or the one near your retirement destination) about how they’d like to handle this issue when you’re retired.  Seek out a veteran’s organization in your area and see if they have anyone who’s dealt with your problem and can share their wisdom.  Contact your local chapter of the Military Officers Association of America for more resources. (Do this even if you’re enlisted– they’ll be glad to help and they’ll know who to contact.) Try the Veterans Benefits Network or the Physical Evaluation Board forum. Post to discussion boards like Military.com or Early-Retirement.org for their advice.

Prescriptions are an aspect of your retirement life that may require considerable thought and planning. Your prescription costs will be considerably cheaper than civilian retirees, but you’ll still need to make sure you can get what you want, in sufficient quantity, when you want it. Consider where you’ll be retired, whether the standard pharmaceutical formulary meets your medication needs, and whether or not you can obtain your medications through Tricare’s mail-order pharmacy. These questions should be asked during your first medical screening, not during the final physical exam.

Discuss the treatment/medication choices with your doctor, and then have a long talk with the pharmacy department. Once you’ve all decided on a long-term medication plan, stock up as much as you can before you retire. You don’t want to run low on your 30-day supply only to find out that there’s been a glitch with transferring your access to the retiree prescription system. Give yourself plenty of time to work through the procedures and, if necessary, to figure out another solution before you run out or have to pay out of your own pocket. This even applies to routine medications such as allergy pills or birth control.

Fully exploit your active-duty or Reserve benefits before you retire. If you’ve been planning to stop smoking or to lose weight or to deal with some other medical/lifestyle aspect, start that project while you’re still on active duty. Depending on your personal/family situation and how much you enjoy planning your life, you may even decide to complete a final pregnancy or vasectomy or tubal ligation with the military healthcare system. If you’re moving from a large military medical system with outstanding care to a remote retirement location with less than excellent facilities, this may be an important decision.

Your retirement physical includes a dental exam. Make the most of it, because retirement dental insurance can be expensive. Consider doing a full set of x-rays, get a good cleaning, and check the condition of any fillings or other dental work. Once you retire you may be fortunate enough to only need an exam every 18-24 months, and it’s frequently cheaper to negotiate a discount with your dentist than to pay for insurance.  If you have a history of root canals or gum disease then dental insurance may be a good investment, but i don’t even have any cavities then you may be able to stick to annual or biennial checkups and cleanings.

Whatever you do, don’t avoid seeking treatment.  No matter how painful you think it’s going to be, it’ll be even more painful when the doctor or dentist won’t sign your retirement checklist.  You don’t want to have to spend your final days of active duty running through the treatment gauntlet with painkillers and physical therapy.  Start early and get it done so that there’s time to do it right.

One final word of medical advice.  When you’re retired and you’ve settled into your new destination, take a few hours to register at the local Veteran’s Administration office.  You may not be eligible for treatment with them, but you may be pleasantly surprised to discover that they’re a Tricare primary care manager.  Whether you use their services or not, when you register with them they can add your name to their local roster to ensure that they get their fair share of federal funding for their local military population.  Another side benefit of hanging out at the VA is the opportunity to meet all sorts of experienced retirees who know your local area and can help you settle in.

It shouldn’t be so complicated in a paperless electronic military, but after you leave you’re going to need a number of different pieces of paper for your own personal records. You’ll have to keep track of some of them for the rest of your life, and they’re almost impossible to correct or replace after you leave the service. Regardless of the details, here’s the big picture: start early, get it done before you retire, and save copies in more than one place.

You already have a retirement checklist, but let’s dig into the nitty-gritty details behind each one of the paperwork items.  I believe that this is the world’s most complete retirement-paperwork summary because I’ve made nearly every one of these mistakes.

DD Form 214 – Military Discharge Paperwork

Let’s start with the summary itself. Each service processes the Certificate of Release or Discharge From Active Duty (DD Form 214) with their own specific procedures, but try to review your rough draft as early as six months before you retire.  Don’t wait for your personnel-service branch to contact you– contact them and explain that you’d like to review a draft now so that you can fix any problems or surprises.

The DD-214 is the official summary of where you’ve served and what you’ve done. If there’s a special skill or qualification that you feel is important to your future benefits or your résumé, then make sure it’s on your DD-214– or make sure you understand why it can’t be done. Sometimes a skill will be left off your DD-214 because “it’s not in the system” or “you don’t have that rating” or “you don’t have that specialty code”.

The processing clerk may be correct in this assessment, but they’re rarely in a position to do anything about it. This means that you may have to correct the errors with your service’s personnel bureau by documenting why you should have that skill or code. Over the years of your career, it’s quite possible that a performance report won’t have all the right codes transferred over to a database, or a software conversion introduces more errors, or your codes are even dropped as a particular skill is phased out of the service.

Get started early— document and updating this part of the system can take 6-10 weeks. Once you get the appropriate data in the personnel system then it’s much easier to make it pop up in your DD-214. It’s hypothetically possible to correct an error after you’ve retired, but it’s also a lengthy bureaucratic experience that may ultimately fail. You’ve spent years of training to get it right the first time, and the DD-214 is one of the most important places to make that happen.

After retirement, most veterans stuff their DD-214 into an “important papers” file and forget about it. This almost guarantees that it will be missing the next time you need it. Make several copies and include them with all your important papers: your copy of your service record, your medical record, and your financial records. Scan an encrypted copy onto your hard drive or upload it to a secure website. Archive another copy with a retiree organization. You won’t have to go looking for it when you apply for veteran’s benefits, exemptions on real-estate taxes, or other retirement benefits that might be available where you live.

For years veterans were advised to register their DD-214 with the city or county clerk’s office. Their official record of service would always be available to them regardless of loss, fire, or other disasters. Today many veterans are concerned about recording their DD-214 as a public record because it contains their Social Security number, which would then be publicly accessible and a risk for identity theft. For others, it reveals more information about a military career than perhaps you would want available for public inspection. You may decide that the risks of identity theft and adverse publicity are not worth the convenience.

You’ll also want to include a copy with your will and your “In Case Of Emergency” file. Your DD-214 can then be retrieved by your representatives (executor, spouse, children). You, your executor and your family will be glad you did.

Over the years on active duty, you’ve depended on your base’s legal office to take care of your wills, medical directives, powers of attorney, and other important family documents. Your retirement may involve moving to another state (or even another country!), finding new doctors and dentists, selling and buying real estate, and changing many other aspects of your life. Review your legal files and update these documents before you leave the command. You may even find a military lawyer at your base who can advise you on legal issues or other matters in your new location.

As you complete your command’s checklist and review your pay statements, make sure all your travel claims have been paid and that your government credit card is turned in. The Defense Finance & Accounting Service audits your final pay record and will eventually correct any oversights, but this could take up to a year. This is also the organization that issues your final military W-2 wage summary and your retiree 1099-R pension statements, so you don’t want to get a series of corrected forms during the middle of income-tax season.

Leave – Should You Sell it or Take Terminal Leave?

While you’re planning your retirement timeline, pay close attention to your leave balance. Remember that you’ll continue to accrue leave at the rate of 2½ days per month right up until the day you retire, and that leave either has to be used or sold back.

If you’re moving to a new location after you retire then you may be eligible to take permissive temporary duty in addition to using your leave. If your leave balance is exceptionally high after a deployment, then you may have to use some of it to avoid losing it at the end of the fiscal year! The rules vary for each service and deployment situation. Research your service and command policies to determine how you’ll use your leave and then schedule it around your other retirement actions.

The military considers a day of leave to be worth only a day of base pay– no allowances or special pays. If you decide to sell back a month of leave then you’ll get exactly one month of base pay and no more. If you take a month of leave then you’ll earn base pay, special pay, and allowances. Make sure you have a plan for your terminal leave time, even if it’s just decompressing.

While selling back leave gives you quite a bit of money to start your retirement with, it might make more sense to delay your retirement date to enjoy an entire month of leave while collecting not only base pay but all of your other entitlements. You have to decide whether time or money is more important to you, as well as the risk of your command recalling you while you’re “just” on leave.

If you decide to sell back leave, make sure that taxes are either withheld from your lump sum or that you pay estimated taxes on the amount. If you don’t have sufficient tax withheld from your pay and other income during the year (including the leave you sell back) then you’ll encounter late-payment penalties and interest charges on your tax return.

Planning Your Final Months of Pay

While you’re reviewing your pay statement, consider maximizing your contributions to the Thrift Savings Plan for that year. Whether you’re separating or retiring, you have one final opportunity to boost your account in the world’s largest and cheapest investment funds. As of this writing, the TSP funds charge an expense ratio of 0.03% (only three basis points!) and veterans may even be eligible to roll their IRA over to their TSP account. These are once-in-a-career decisions that will affect years of tax-deferred compounding. Review the TSP rules, talk with your command’s TSP representative, and make the decision well before your retirement ceremony.

Whether you plan to start a bridge career or become a diehard surf bum, consider whether you want to maintain your eligibility for a security clearance. Your command security manager will have the appropriate unclassified statement to put in your civilian résumé to refer to your military clearance.

At least six weeks before your retirement date, and before you detach from your command, give your DD-214 one more check. The personnel staff may not release your final copy until your retirement date, or they may be able to forward it to your new address.

Turning in All Your Gear, and Out-Processing Your Unit

Back at work, inventory all the gear that your job is entitled to and personally verify that the gear you’re responsible for is actually present or accounted for. Wherever possible, make sure that it’s under your personal control or locked away or transferred to someone else’s custody. The person intending to take over your job may balk at doing so until they have the tools they need. If something isn’t where it’s supposed to be, then either find it right now or else stiffen your resolve and start the investigation. It’s hard to imagine a worse way to spend the week before retirement than looking for “missing” objects.

Speaking of missing objects, hang onto your receipts for turning in controlled equipment and classified material– save them for at least three years. The command may not discover any “issues” until weeks or even months after you retire, and your receipt is your only proof that you didn’t lose anything. The command may also appreciate your assistance with clearing up any problems in their own records, and your receipts will be a big help to the investigating officer.

It goes without saying that you should also return any “borrowed” office equipment or supplies. While they may have eased your military burden through telecommuting or on official travel, they’re not yours to take into retirement. After years of pinching pennies on your command’s budget, it may be a surprise to learn that pens, paper, and other office equipment are surprisingly affordable at many fine retail outlets. Make a fresh start on your retirement by using anything more stylish than government-furnished office supplies.

Final Move – Stay in Place, or One Final PCS?

While you’re dreaming about a fresh start, are you living in your retirement location or will you need to move? If you’re moving, when do you want to do that? Depending on your housing situation, you may be able to extend your stay until after your retirement. Although you may be eager to start your new life after the military, the last few months before retirement will be a very hectic time. You’ll be wrapping up the loose ends at work, putting the finishing touches on your retirement ceremony, and gathering all your family & friends. You’ll probably have a number of house guests over the next few weeks, and that’s a very difficult time to start sorting possessions for packing or storage.

If command operations and your retirement timeline permit it, try to have your retirement ceremony at least a week before you start packing out your household goods. That’ll give you time to finish detaching from your command, send off your last house guests, clean up after their departure, and have some time to catch your breath before you start preparing for the move. It’ll also give you a chance to figure out what you’re going to do with all those retirement presents and plaques!

You retirees:  did I miss anything?  Do you have any sea stories to tell about your retirement paperwork?

Related Articles:
Exit Interviews, Last-Minute Questions, and the Retirement Ceremony
How Much Is Your Military Pay Really Worth?