RTFM

Speaking of the Army I Knew...

So I retired from the rascal about twenty years ago - back in '05, IIRC.

By that time I had twenty years in - twenty-three, to be exact. I wanted to make 1SG - I cared less about the top spot (I had no interest in nagging troops about their haircuts or boots and area beautification...) but I'd always wanted to be a First Shirt.

But.

I also had a new wife and a one-year-old and there were guerrilla wars going on in Southwest Asia and the wife - who is a treasure and a darling and has always been there for me in all other paths of life - had just suffered through the death of our firstborn.

She told me that she couldn't live through a year-and-a-half deployment.

So I pulled the pin.

Anyway, point is that at the time, and all through the time since then, I was fully employed, well-paid, and, frankly, over time lost track of the whole "retirement pay" thing.

Until I retired from my day job.

Then I got to thinking, y'know, it'd be a nice little tickler to have a couple of hundred bucks a month or so to buy a beer now and then or to pay the gas bill. So I yarded out my old Army orders file and looked for my "20-year-letter" etc. to see about asking Sammy for some jack.

And right there on the first page of the retirement packet it read in black-and-white;

"Current policy requires the retiree submits retirement application about 9 months but not less than 90 days prior to 60th date of birth..."

Which was...ummm...five years ago.

Duh!

So, important safety tip:

Read The. Fucking. Manual. 

I called the nice people at Ft. Knox, who said that, yes, I was a fucking idiot and that, yes, I could still apply.

That is all. Platoon sergeants, take charge.