Photo By Timothy Hale | As Army Reserve soldiers near the end of their time in uniform, many start thinking...... read more read more
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FORT BRAGG, N.C. – As Army Reserve soldiers near the end of their time in uniform, many start thinking about the next phase of their lives.
To assist with this transition, the U.S. Army Reserve Command has established the Retirement Services Office to help soldiers and their families ensure they receive the benefits they have earned.
Ernest Stripling, the program manager for Retirement Services Office at USARC G-1, Fort Bragg, N.C., says that all soldiers need to take advantage of their benefits.
“In each soldier’s life cycle, they go through a transition and retirement is one of the transitions,” Stripling said. “It’s important that soldiers, family members, retirees and survivors understand their entitlements and benefits.”
Stripling said that each Regional Support Command has a dedicated RSO to serve those within each geographic area. Within those RSOs are trained retirement service officers to assist soldiers with their retirement benefits.
“Retirement Services Offices provide crucial retirement counseling and pre-retirement services to soldiers and families to aid them in making timely and informed decisions regarding their entitlements and benefits,” said Lt. Col. Kathleen Couillard, RSO pilot action officer for the United States Army Reserve Command.
Stripling said the “big-ticket items” that prospective retirees are usually most interested in are health and dental insurance, and retirement pay.
He added the program development has been underway for almost a decade but really came to fruition through a 2002 Army Family Action Plan recommendation to help address retirement issues specifically for the Army Reserve.
“The active component have had retirement service offices,” Stripling said. “The Army Reserve has never had the equivalent to the active component. We have to develop our own infrastructure so we can take care of our soldiers as well as family members.”
Currently, there are three to four retirement seminars conducted regionally per quarter but the goal is to hold four to five per quarter, Stripling said.
“Educating these soldiers about their retirement benefits is critical to ensuring they are able to make good decisions when they reach 20 “good” years and have to make a Reserve Component Survivor Benefit Plan election,” said Lt. Col. Twanda E. Young, RSO policy integrator.
“The program continues to make progress in permanently placing civilian staff within each RSC to ensure soldiers receive the support they deserve during the transition process,” said Young.
“The establishment of Army Reserve Retirement Services offices is just one component of the Army’s unprecedented effort to ensure the resources and support provided is the very best,” she said.
To date, the Army Reserve has conducted nine pre-retirement seminars exclusively for reservists and three Joint pre-retirement seminars in conjunction with the National Guard. Over 4,100 soldiers have received retirement services assistance since the initiation of the RSO Pilot Program.
“If you don’t do anything, you need to attend the pre-retirement briefing so at least you’ll know your entitlement and benefits,” Stripling said.
Once soldiers receive their 20-year anniversary letter from HRC, Stripling said those soldiers will have options to decide upon.
“Those options are not simple,” he said. “So you need to talk to a retirement services officer before you make an election. And you only have 90 days to make an election.”
Soldiers that choose not to make an election may be surprised once they start drawing retirement pay.
“I recommend every soldier attend a retirement briefing before they retire,” Stripling said.
Recent initiatives to assist soldiers transition include a distance-learning module developed between the Army National Guard and Army Reserve to prepare soldiers for retirement.
For more information about Retirement Services Office, Soldiers can visit the following websites:
http://www.armyg1.army.mil/rso
http://myarmybenefits.us.army.mil
https://www.hrc.army.mil/TAGD/Reserve%20Retirement%20Services
Lt. Col. I.J. Perez, Army Reserve Communications, contributed to this story.
| Date Taken: | 06.05.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 06.05.2012 13:28 |
| Story ID: | 89453 |
| Location: | FORT BRAGG, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 1,297 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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