Serving in the military is beneficial in terms of experience, training and learning about a job specialty or career field.Serving in the military is beneficial in terms of experience, training and learning about a job specialty or career field. But there are also benefits for the person that makes the military a lifelong pursuit. The military has a program of retirement benefits that provide a pension to personnel that serve at least 20 years on active duty. This means a person could literally retire as early as 37 or 38 years old with 20 years service in the military. The retirement benefits are not linked to age, and can be accesses as soon as a person gains the required amount of time, which for active duty is 20 years or more.
The retirement benefits that are offered to Military Servicemembers include medical, dental and financial benefits. There are different factors that affect how much a Servicemember will be eligible for in military retirement. The rank and years of service at retirement are the largest issues, people that retire as commissioned officers receive more than those that are enlisted service veterans. There used to be a retirement cap for Servicemembers that had over thirty years of service, they could only have credit for thirty years and any years of service after 30 were not counted for purposes of retirement. Now, as a result of action by Congress in 2007 Servicemembers that serve 30 years or more receive credit for all the time they have worked in the military when they retire.
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Wounded or Disabled- The Servicemember who was wounded or disabled as a result of a Service related incident used to be penalized when they retired. They were not able to receive disability payments plus the retirement that they earned. With the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act in 2007 Congress mandated that any disability payments would not be counted and that Servicemembers could receive their disability in addition to their retirement that they have earned.
Military Retirement is a lucrative plan available to both Active duty Servicemembers and some Reserve Servicemembers. Reservists that retire accumulate retirement points vs. actual time served, and if a Reserve Servicemember has accumulated enough points then they qualify for retirement benefits under the US Military Reserve retirement program. Some Servicemembers can accumulate active duty points that transfer to the reserve retirement program.
