Dunno, I finished in the IRR.. I think the paper with my flag said it flew over Gitmo...
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Crossing the finish line... running, walking or crawling... (Reserve Retirement Process)
- Thread starter RHINOWSO
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- reserve retirement
vxc961
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Yeah...I feel kinda bad, but the reserves took a big toll on me and my family, so I’m gonna fight for my GD flag so that when I die all three of my boys get a flag, and I’ll give one of them the one I got when I retired.
I’m not totally sure why this is a pea in my craw, but I think there were enough times in my Reserve career where I said “yes sir, that’s what the refs say...” that I’m willing to force them to go through a little @$$ pain to get me the flag.
You are aware of what is going on with the PSD's (i.e., the PSD closures and consolidations)? I am all about carrying the ball down the field, however, there are larger issues going on at the moment.
Yes, and you are aware that that game has been going on for the last 20 plus years? And it is not just the PSDs, it's kind of a Big Navy trend ... consolidate, close, reduce duplicate infrastructure, etc...
It's one thing if service members haven't followed the requirements for submission and timelines to process, it's another thing when all those are met and the member is prevented from receiving their benefits on time. (The health care benefits comment above jumped out at me) Who's going to bat for them? Who's tracking them and following up when the paperwork get's lost in the process? It's easy for an active duty retirement since you have the squadron, wing and direct representation at PERs to help. All these threads leave me with the impression that most of the reserve retirement submissions receive little to no support nor the backing of commands that are looking out for them. A couple of my buddies just finished their NOSC command tours, guess I will ask them what their take is.
From the cheap seats I know it is easy for me to make commentary and criticism, but we have 9 pages in this thread and across others on this forum where individuals are having difficulty and issues receiving their retirement benefits. "There are larger issues" ... really? So someone who has spent an entire career serving, and the Navy can't take the time to fix a potentially broken process or ensure the retirement paperwork and benefits is processed timely? Thanks shipmate, glad to know where your priorities are.
Side note, out of curiosity, what exactly do you do since your profile info has very little information in it?
I think my comment was taken out of context or I did a poor job explaining myself. When I said there are larger issues, I was referring to your suggestion that people can start researching offices and people responsible and then use internal or external sources to create leverage, as well as walking into the office of the person that runs the place.
While these suggestions may work for the individual in trying to solve their issue, these suggestions will not drive sea state change for the masses.
NOSC support and quality varies significantly based on many factors. Having been around awhile across several NOSCs, some within different time frames with different staff, I can tell you the two things that I have seen as influencers: the quality of the NOSC staff, and the ratio of NOSC staff to assigned SELRES. The other issue is that many active duty people going to a NOSC know sh*t all about how the Reserve works.
My NOSC has about 450 SELRES and we have an experienced CO who is a really, really good CO. IMHO, they are understaffed and the staff quality is a mixed bag.
I've been an admin officer in every unit since I commissioned and have been peeved about the state of Reserve admin since I came back to the Reserve in 2009. It is a sh*t show. If a major corporation ran things like the Reserve runs admin, the company would fail, literally.
At least for my folks, I make sure that I do everything (awards, any submissions, any paperwork, re-enlistment letters, training, etc.) and involve the NOSC as little as possible, if at all. I even personally mail or FedEx peoples' EVALs and FITREPs. If I have to turn something in to the NOSC it is ready for NOSC CO signature and I personally walk it around to get it signed, make copies, scan it for member, etc. I something has to be left, I repeatedly follow up to ensure it's done, otherwise, it takes freaking forever.
I also keep PDF's of pretty much every instruction on my laptop because I typically have to cite them to some of the NOSC admin staff when getting things done either because the staff gave out bad gouge or does not know the answer. This happened to me twice this weekend alone involving EVALs and award write ups: me being told I could not do something, me citing/showing the instruction, then having the NOSC admin staff tell me, "oh, ok, I've never done that before."
I am an 1825, former 1835, and prior E.
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Back in October 2018 I sent faxed in a request to PERS for my record to be reviewed and to confirm that I actually have the years in service that I think I do. They got back to me today. LOL...8 months later. Everything is good and I was correct. Of course I was able to confirm this myself with a lot of phone calls back in November, but I'm glad my request go reviewed.
When I went from SELRES to VTU I nearly lost my SGLI and it took me about that same timeframe to handle. The issue? At DFAS there was a single person -- ONE PERSON -- who was handling Reserve SGLI payment processing, etc. This person, a 30+ year employee, did not document anything -- NOTHING -- and subsequently passed away. Someone -- another 30+ year employee -- took over from the deceased employee and took months to figure out what the hell was going on, to include finding out how the deceased employee was processing payments for people. The person who took over finally figured out payments were getting paid via pay.gov. Person had to request special access to that web site and then finally figured out what the hell was going on and how the money was getting from pay.gov to DFAS to pay premiums.
The only reason I found all this out was that I contacted the DFAS complaints hotline and told them I was contacting the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer who is the boss of DFAS. I literally got a phone call about an hour after that email from the person who took over from the deceased employee.
I even offered to go on unpaid orders to DFAS to help unscrew the mess and the person was not interested. Told me, "I think we have some Reservists here." Had no interest whatsoever in my help even though I am an IP and do all this nonsense for a living.
PERS, DFAS, et al, are littered with multi-decade, information broker govvies who are single points of failure.
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If only there was an IT ticketing platform that might remedy these issues and provide better service now, so that we don’t continue to jeer at the problem. It’s not like what I’m suggesting is an atlassian task, lifting up the whole world or something. Instead of that 30-year employee’s disheveled desk of lost paperwork it ought to be more of a zen desk.
You speak as though there might already be a Remedy out there....
Anyone know if it is a DD-108 when you retire from the reserves and then a DD-2656 when you put in for retirement pay just before age 60 - or do you do both right before turning 60?
(Foggy crystal ball on table, insence in the air, lights low, hands flat on table, Mistress Niro's eyes glazed over, she channels @Brett327 ) "People people. Nothing to get worked up over. No one cares. Nothing in the news. This ain't broke. Works like it is supposed to. You will get your back pay. File the correct forms and make the right calls and you will get that surgery covered after the fact. The Navy will get it right in the end. This just isn't worth getting excited about. Nothing new here."
I made it. I hit 20 good years in 20 years as an O-4 with an anniversary date of May 14, 2019. I had returned a letter PERS sent me regarding either requesting continuation or retirement back in December or January. I picked a retirement date of June 1. I called a few times and put in trouble tickets through the IRR help desk, and finally got a response that my NOE would be mailed in a few weeks. Within a couple days of that, I received my NOE -- early July. Within a week after that, I received a retirement certificate, retirement orders (I'm IRR), but no flag.
All in all, completion of the process within 2 months after my selected retirement date isn't all that bad. The communication from PERS could certainly be better. But now, I'm done...I did nine years active duty, and eleven in the IRR...I always thought I'd affiliate with SELRES, but my civilian jobs were too demanding. I had serious doubts over the years whether the correspondence course train would get me to the finish line. But it did. This website was immensely helpful over the years and thanks to all of you who have contributed. Best of luck to all of you who are trying to finish up your twenty.
All in all, completion of the process within 2 months after my selected retirement date isn't all that bad. The communication from PERS could certainly be better. But now, I'm done...I did nine years active duty, and eleven in the IRR...I always thought I'd affiliate with SELRES, but my civilian jobs were too demanding. I had serious doubts over the years whether the correspondence course train would get me to the finish line. But it did. This website was immensely helpful over the years and thanks to all of you who have contributed. Best of luck to all of you who are trying to finish up your twenty.
vxc961
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Congrats buddy!!