If I have six (good) years in the National Guard, followed by 20 years active duty will my pension reflect 20 years of service? Or 26?

That is what I'm assuming. However, I haven't found documentation or anyone to confirm.

CW2 (Join to see) Papers do vanish. Records personally maintained and organized can be a Godsend. Guard deductions may also accrue to your Social Security benefit when you attain the age for filing for SS.

Everything is easier when you are younger, trust me.

Do the Standard form 180 for a Nat’l Archives request and they should furnish a copy of the Form 20 from your days in the Guard.

I did not retain my file of documents after filing for my age 60 military retirement. I should have kept everything for the Social Security folks.

I think the rule of thumb is you’ll get 1 year of active service for every 12 years or reserve time. This is added to the end once you’ve reached 20 years AFS. If you have more reserve points, then the rule of thumb I mentioned will change. I retired with just over 20 AFS and had 12 years reserve and ended up with 22.5 years of credited AFS. That only changes you percentage of retired pay you’ll receive, you’ll still be credited based on the pay scale with you total number of years served.

Maybe the rule of thumb was 6 years of reserve time for every 1 year of active service credited.

LTC Curtis Madsen so it depends on the points you’re accruing during your reserve service. The standard is 48 unit training assemblies (or whatever your particular service calls drill periods), 15 days of annual training and 15 membership points just for breathing. Only the time or orders counts towards reaching retirement but every point counts as one day once you get your 20 year letter. The normal year is 78 points which comes out to 1/5 of an active duty year. But most reservists end up missing part of that so your 1 and 6 rule probably comes out to close to average for a non-operational reservist.

Yup, I totally understand the process. I retired AGR and became rather an expert with this. The 1405 worksheet really breaks down the traditional time, so you can get a snapshot of what you reserve time will equate to.

Thanks!