Why stay in the reserves?

The two best reasons for staying in the reserves are: keeping your ties with Marines and the Marine Corps, and the financial benefits.

The best part about the Marine Corps is the Marines. There is not another group of 200,000 persons anywhere in the world as connected to each other and their heritage as we are.

Where else can an 80-year-old talk to a 22-year-old like they are brothers who grew up together. In a sense, they did grow up together, one in World War II and one in Iraqi Freedom. Staying in the Marine Corps Reserves keeps your connection to Marines and allows you to build on your common experiences together.

Believe it or not, joining the Marine Corps Reserves can be financially rewarding, and retiring from the reserves can be a cornerstone of your retirement planning. Reserve Marines are paid anywhere from a few hundred to $1,000 a drill weekend.

That’s good pay for doing something you love, but the real benefits come further down the road. The larger financial benefit comes if you qualify for a reserve retirement and when you receive your benefits at 60 years old. The Marine Corps Reserve has got to be the only job where you get paid more in retirement, than you are paid while actually working the job.

It is not uncommon for an enlisted Marine to be paid a few hundred dollars a month for serving in the reserves, but then get paid several hundred a month and receive full military retiree benefits. The main difference between the active-duty retirement and reserve retirement is the paycheck and benefits do not start until age 60 for reserves, instead of the day after you leave the service like active-duty retirees.

Full military benefits (including medical benefits) are an increasingly valuable package. As Americans get healthier and live longer, the age to receive Medicare benefits has gone up, now retirees must wait until 67 years of age to receive a government health insurance benefit.

If you receive a military reserve retirement, you will be eligible for retiree medical⁄health benefits at age 60; which turns out to be a significant financial benefit compared to buying health insurance for you and dependents at that age.

How Do You Get Into a Reserve Unit?

All roads to a reserve unit lead through a prior service recruiter. Just like their title describes, these are recruiters who are stationed throughout the United States, looking for recently discharged Marines to fill certain vacancies in nearby reserve units.

But don’t hold your breath for their phone call. If you are, for example, an infantry Marine, and you return to your hometown of Newport News, Va., you may not be called by a prior service recruiter, because the Newport News unit is a supply unit. In fact, there is not an infantry unit around for hundreds of miles.

What are you to do?

The interesting point about a Marine Corps Reserve career is that it is a mix of ‘‘needs of the Corps,” ‘‘needs of the Marine,” and just plain geography.

If you are an infantry Marine and your hometown unit is a supply unit, they would still love to have you. The experience and leadership a prior service Marine brings to a reserve unit is invaluable. To manage your career and be competitive for promotion and technically useful to the unit, you will have to be trained in a new military occupational specialty and then have your primary MOS changed.

Many specialties can be awarded through a combination of on-the-job-training and command approval. However, if your new MOS is more technical, the reserve unit will want to send you to the active-duty MOS school for your training in the new field. The best time to go to training is obviously right when you get off active duty ... your uniforms still fit, you may still be job-hunting for a civilian job, and a few months of a Marine Corps school may not be a big interruption.

The management of your Marine Corps Reserve career is much more up to you than up to the Corps. Unlike active duty, you will not get new sets of orders every two to three years for a new unit. In fact, many reserve Marines stay for 10 or more years in the same units, assuming new duties as they gain experience and rank.

Staying in the same unit may be great for remembering the way to your drill center, but career counselors will tell you that showing you can succeed in different units and duties will typically impress a board more than being successful with the same unit and same Marines your whole career.

That is doubly true for officers. Officers are encouraged and in company commander and unit OIC billets, forced, to move units every two to three years. Unlike active duty, you are not given a new unit automatically, you have to find one.

There are two essential tools to finding a new billet⁄unit: the phone and the internet. The Marine On-Line Web site has a tool called Reserve Duty On-Line. This tool is a searchable database of billet vacancies which may show a nearby fit for your MOS and rank. Even if you can’t find a direct fit, but a close fit, it is worth a phone call. Many reserve billets can be filled ‘‘one up⁄one down” in terms of rank (for example, a major may fill a captain’s billet).

In addition, MOS requirements may not be hard and fast depending on your qualifications and even civilian experience. That’s where the second tool comes in: the telephone.

There is no substitute for talking to the Marines at the reserve unit you are interested in joining. Only through talking can they get to know you and your experiences, and you can ask questions about the billet you’re interested in, and can ask questions about any other vacancies or upcoming vacancies they may have.

In this manner, looking for your next reserve unit⁄billet is much like looking for a civilian job without the difficulties of pay negotiations.

How Do You Retire?

You are brought in to the reserves after a few years on active duty, because you want to stay with Marines and reap the benefits of a reserve retirement. So, how do you retire?

The short answer is: the same as active duty after 20 years. But that simple statement deserves explanation.

Time in the reserves is measured in satisfactory ‘‘sat” years. A sat year is one in which the reservist accrues 50 or more retirement points (or credits in some documents). A retirement point is, for no better explanation, a unit of service. A reservist receives one retirement point for every four hours of reserve drill duty. On a typical two-day reserve drill weekend, the reservist will receive four retirement points. For periods of active duty, the reservist receives one retirement point per day. Your active- duty time will count at the rate of one point per day (365 points per year) toward retirement. So if you have a few years of active duty under your belt, it would be a shame to throw those points away when they could boost a reserve retirement.

You are eligible for retirement when you accrue 20 sat years. Your retired pay will be based on a comparison to a fictitious Marine who joined the service the same day you did, got promoted the same as you and has been on active duty the same time you’ve been in the Corps.

For example, in your 20-year reserve career you may have accrued 2,500 points. In 20 years your make-believe active duty counterpart has accrued 7,300 points. Your retirement will be the ratio of your points to your counterpart’s points, or roughly 34 percent of your active duty counterpart’s retirement.

The Marine Corps Reserve needs a constant stream of prior service Marines to fill the ranks of noncommissioned, staff NCO and officers, to provide leadership, experiences and technical knowledge that reserve service can only duplicate so well, the reserves, need you.

Affiliation with the Marine Corps Reserve is not merely a one-way street of giving to the Corps, the financial and retirement benefits you will receive in return for your service can add up to be quite lucrative over a multi-year career that culminates in qualifying for a military retirement. All those benefits for doing something you love, with the best people in the world, United States Marines! Semper fi.

For more information about joining reserves visit Marine Corps Forces Reserve Web site www.marforres.usmc.mil or call 1-800-234-3940.

Editor’s note: Galbraith is a reserve Marine who drills at the Public Affairs Office here.