Retire With Military or Get Out?

skidz said:
How long you have to be in reserve to be eligible for retirement? I'm on active duty right now, let's say I get out next year with 6-7 yrs in service, can I join reserve like a year before retirement and pick up the retirement check for my active duty + that year in reserve? :drool:
Just a hypothetical question.
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You must complete at least 20 years of service. If you already did 6 active then you would still need 14 years reserves to make 20 total.
 
Staying in the military sounds like a good plan nowadays. Sometimes I wish I would have stayed in. But in Hacker 15e's case and anyone else in the same situation I think you should follow your first mind. For example a friend of mine was in the air force a few years ago and all was going well until he had to eject and subsequently sustained a injury that (grounded) him. So in summary I think it all depends on how well you like flying.;)
 
It's a really hard decision. When things are really sucking on the outside, things seem to be go in the military. When things are crappy in the military, it "seems" like things are better on the outside. I HATE that the hiring is so CRAZY, because I know it won't be this good in 5 years when I am retirement eligible. I always think of it like this...the grass IS greener on the other side, but that is because there is more crap to fertilize the grass...
 
Hacker15e said:
My memory of the actual numbers is vague, but I absolutely recall that there was a financial benefit in the long run of getting out of the military instead of staying until 20.

It got me to thinking, wondering if the significant drop in Major Airline pay over the last 10 years had significantly changed anything. So I jammed on an Excel spreadsheet for a little while yesterday and made my own comparison.

Here are the two posts I made over on APC showing the results:
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Oh, another thing...you forgot to list some assumptions:
1) SWA is hiring.
2) You get hired by SWA.
3) SWA stays in business.

I think 3 is a pretty safe assumption, but 1 & 2 will vary, depending upon timing, the economy, and other factors. It's like guys who plan their future based upon getting drafted by the NBA. Sure, you may be a great player--maybe even better than the guys in the league--but there are only so many slots, and you can't count on getting one of them.
 
Fly4Pay said:
Oh, another thing...you forgot to list some assumptions:
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No, I didn't really "forget" to list those.

First off, no kidding you have to assume that you get hired by that company and they stay in business. I made the original comparison against the best case scenario, with the understanding that any other airline, given current conditions, was going to offer lesser compensation.

Second, if I had made the comparison against any middle-of-the-road airline, I would have been inundated with posts saying "what if..." and spouting about the fantastic pay at Brand X that I neglected to consider in my analysis.

So, you could go on and on and on with nitpicking holes in my computations. It was really just meant as a barometer as to what the current atmosphere was compared to what I'd seen pre 9/11. I'm sure that none of the guys I mentioned who had these spreadsheets pre-9/11 had considered "terrorists hijack airplanes which results in virtual collapse of airline industry as we know it" as one of THEIR assumptions, either.
 
RAF Lakenheath!!! Gosh, I'm quite certain that place has changed since I was there back in 1972! I believe they had F4s back then.

Oh my. . .the things I did there; oops, the one or two lies I told off base.
 
MFT1Air said:
RAF Lakenheath!!! Gosh, I'm quite certain that place has changed since I was there back in 1972! I believe they had F4s back then.

Oh my. . .the things I did there; oops, the one or two lies I told off base.
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If it weren't for the skull-shattering pace of operations (I've been TDY away from there 9 of the last 13 months), I would probably enjoy it!
 
Hacker15e said:
So, you could go on and on and on with nitpicking holes in my computations.
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Relax, Hacker... not nitpicking the computations--I'm just pointing out that there are some additional unstated assumptions, some of which are pretty big ones. You're right--you can't account for all scenarios, but it's also important to be upfront with folks about the likelihood of success.

It's like the real estate infomercials on TV. Sure... one guy may have made thousands of dollars on his first deal, but "results are not typical."
 
Fly4Pay said:
It's like the real estate infomercials on TV. Sure... one guy may have made thousands of dollars on his first deal, but "results are not typical."
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I guess my point was that you could ask the same questions about ANY career in the airlines, and not just one relating to retired military.
 
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