Lusitan said:
Nords - when you say you would have joined the reserve, do you mean you would have retired earlier and joined the reserve? Or that you would still have FIRE'd when you did, just that you would have joined the reserve when you left active duty? Do you feel that way due to financial reasons, or did you miss something about being the military that you realized the reserves would have given you?
Lusitan said:
I hope to be able to spend much more time with my child(ren) that way.
No, there's no option to retire earlier than 20 years of service unless a special incentive is offered (I was never eligible) or there's a serious medical issue.
I would've resigned and then either gone back on active duty as a Reservist (with much more control over where/when/how long) or gotten a real civilian job along with drilling Reserve weekends & two-weeks-a-year active duty (the way the Reserves used to be during the Cold War). I'd probably still be working part time today (unless I discovered some latent Midas talent), and living a "Work Less Live More" lifestyle.
The Reserves would've given me the option of using my Navy skills without having to find a civilian career. The pay would've been the same (when I was working) and the benefits (except medical insurance) would've been about the same. (My active-duty spouse would've covered my medical.) But we would've had more control over my working hours, my liberty, and childcare. Ironically I might have been more easily promoted as a Reservist than many of my active-duty counterparts, but we'll never know.
I would've left active duty in 1994, after 12 years of service, so many would have advised me to stay on active duty and "just suck it up!" Of course those of you who've been in the Reserves for a while remember that the drawdown after the first Gulf War was pretty vicious, so I probably would have had a difficult time finding Reserve work if we'd left Hawaii. (Unlike Norfolk & San Diego, Hawaii has lots of military commands but not so many Reserve volunteers.) So the picture wouldn't be quite as rosy as I made it seem, but I would've had more control over that picture. However a 9/11 mobilization (or two) would've been almost as difficult a challenge as staying on active duty turned out to be. Instead of collecting a 20-year retirement at age 41 I would've collected slightly less at age 60... or maybe a bit more. Again we'll never know.
But here's the general lessons for the rest of the board, both veterans & civilians. There were two reasons I didn't resign, other than just plain inertia. The first reason was sheer ignorance of what the Reserves could do for me because in a decade of active duty I'd never really worked with Reservists. When I was having a miserable time at COMSUBPAC, though, I was surrounded by Reservists (including a couple shipmates) who would've been thrilled to corrupt another one show me what the Reserves could do for me. It never occurred to me (amid the long workdays/weekends, chronic night-baby-feeding fatigue, and general overwhelming family time) to investigate my options.
The second reason was because spouse and I feared that one of us leaving the Navy would result in the other one of us being ordered to a remote duty station. For spouse at the time this would've been Diego Garcia and it would've been an unaccompanied tour. But again due to our situation we never really analyzed the finances or childcare, just the terrible thought of having to handle being a single parent for 12-18 months. Somehow the default decision became staying on active duty.
So as miserable as it may be at a job, it's extremely difficult to pull one's head out of an IN box for a dispassionate quantitative appraisal of career options, personal finances, and the fears/anxieties. But
it has to be done to be able to figure out a solution and I never made an opportunity for myself to do that. Sure, I made it to retirement, but there was undoubtedly a price to be paid.
The year before I retired, when my retirement was assured but spouse was threatened given an unaccompanied-tour offer that she couldn't refuse, spouse resigned from active duty and joined the Reserves. She was just short of 18 years of service, but life is far better than it would've been if she'd taken the advice to "suck it up!" The difference in our situations is that we were a bit older & wiser, less fearful of confrontation, and able to make the time we needed to analyze all the details. Like Laurence's conversation with his spouse about buying a house with a risky ARM loan, our sanity epiphany came when we were contemplating a separation of over a year (I'd be raising our eight-year-old in Hawaii) and marveling at the robust family-counseling services that would've been offered at my spouse's overseas homeport. We looked at each other and she said "I gotta resign" at the same time that I said "Game over." The uproar that followed her resignation letter confirmed that she'd made the right choice... and it also showed us that being able to analyze our situation and act on it had given us the upper hand.
Those were what I used as a kid when the waist elastic/garter would lose elasticity. It's really a hassle though when you have to go to the bathroom...
