Retirement Advice after PEB and VA Ratings
I'll try to keep this short, but give as much detail as possible. I have been going through the IDES process and received my ratings last Tuesday. VA preliminary = 100% (waiting to find out if P&T), Army = 20%. I have been in the Guard the entire time with 18 years of service, 17 qualifying towards retirement, and about 7.5 years of active duty time. I am also a MILTECH, Title 32 Dual Status Guard technician program. *The 17 towards retirement is because my initial back injury arose during Guard time and I couldn't attend enough drills to make a qualifying year*
My issue arises from figuring out what benefits I lose if I don't fight to get my Military rating up to 30%. I can't seem to find cut and dry answers and am hoping some people here might know. I am already starting the process to fight it, but I am struggling to decide if it is worth it.
Between the VA and MILTECH disability retirement I will be alright financially, at least enough to pay all my bills and move on with finishing up a degree I put off for far too long.
I will not qualify for concurrent draw of Military Retirement and VA benefits because I do not have 20 active service years and none of my medical issues are from combat. I know this means the Disability Severance pay(DSP) would be recouped by the VA withholding my VA pay until such time as the DSP was repaid in full.
I also qualify for the 15 year early retirement and am debating on taking that. However, the MILTECH side is currently looking into whether that will disqualify me from getting the disability retirement from them which is about $2,000/ month.
My wife and I are both just trying to figure out the best plans and struggle to find correct information and my retirement services personnel are being less than helpful. Mostly sending links to the retirement calculators or telling me they can't assist until after the med board is complete.