Photo By Sgt. Adam Garlington | The Retirement Services Office offers pre-retirement briefings about benefits and...... read more read more
Subscribe
FORT BLISS, Texas - After 20 years of low crawling through mud and sand, surviving deployments to war zones, being away from loved ones; this allows military members to qualify for retirement pay. This milestone is supplemented by the Retirement Services Office, which is the epicenter of information for retiring and retired military members and their families.
The RSO offers pre-retirement briefings about benefits and entitlements like: education, finance, medical, retirement ceremony, Survivor Benefit Plan counseling, and the establishment of a retiree pay account. It also provides post-retirement services, such as assisting widows, obtaining copies of lost documents, issuance of military ID cards, and assisting retirees and their beneficiaries with any pay related issues.
Jose Hernandez, Fort Bliss Garrison retirement services officer said, “The most important things retirees should know is their benefits. It should be twofold, the retiree should know and the spouse should know.”
According to Hernandez, who is responsible for providing retirement services to more than 50 counties in West Texas and the entire state of New Mexico, widows are often unaware of what entitlements they’re eligible to receive and what they must do to receive those entitlements.
He said widows sometimes don’t know their eligible to receive arrears of pay, a retiree’s unpaid pay, and annuity payments under the Survivor Benefit Plan. The RSO gives retirees and their spouses a survivor assistance guide during pre-retirement briefings. The guide tells the spouse what to do and who to contact for benefits and entitlements if their spouse dies.
Although there is nothing in his job description that requires Hernandez to go to a widow’s home and provide counseling about survivor benefits, he does it anyway.
“If [widows] can’t come to us, we go to them,” he said. “We make it a point to go out and provide the service to them, because a lot of them can’t come [here].”
The RSO and other programs, like the Army Career Alumni Program exist to help military members, but Hernandez said it’s up to the retirees to take advantage of these programs.
“One thing [retirees] don’t take advantage of is the briefings that are available to them,” he said. “You can attend ACAP two-years out, without orders. All [pre-retirement preparation] can be done within that time frame, so when you get your orders, you don’t have to run around and try to get everything done.”
The RSO also provides briefings about retiree benefits to any organization that wants to help retirees, and it hosts an annual Retiree Appreciation Day here during September.
Last year, the RSO mailed more than 22,000 retiree bulletins for RAD, and approximately 600 retirees attended the event. Hernandez said the goal of RAD is to disseminate valuable information about retirement benefits to retirees and their beneficiaries.
The RSO invites speakers from military organizations, such as Military Officers of America Association, National Association for Uniform Services and Association of the U.S. Army to the event.
“Those are the [organizations] lobbying for the military in Congress to get some of these laws changed that effect our benefits,” said Hernandez.
RAD also has speakers from Team Bliss, display tables from federal and military organizations, a mini-health fair, and a representative from Defense Finance and Accounting Services-Cleveland, who provides on-site financial services to retirees and their beneficiaries.
For more information about retirement services contact Jose Hernandez at 915-569-6233 or DSN: 979-6233.
| Date Taken: | 01.16.2013 |
| Date Posted: | 01.16.2013 11:07 |
| Story ID: | 100588 |
| Location: | FORT BLISS, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 299 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, RSO, the one-stop shop for retirees, by SGT Adam Garlington, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
