Q. I was recently told that I could buy back a part of my retirement time toward my retirement and still maintain my military retirement. I have 20 years of military service and would like to buy back 10 years toward my civilian retirement. Is this possible?
A. You can only do that if those 10 years constitute a separate and discrete part (or parts) of your active-duty service. For example, if you were on active duty for 10 years before being employed as a civilian and then you were called back to active duty twice, each time for two years. You could make a deposit for the 10 years and not do so for the other periods of service. Or if that first period was only eight years, you could make a deposit for those and for one two-year period when you were called up.
