Q. I have been employed full time with the Veterans Affairs Department since March 2010. I am also currently in the Air National Guard with 27 total years of service. I am 51 years old and would like to buy back 15 years of my military service. I have a total of 17 years of active service with all my deployments. If I buy back 15 years, can I collect my full National Guard retirement when I turn 60 and also collect my FERS retirement? How many years will I have to work to get any type of FERS retirement? I am also a disabled veteran and currently get a disability check.
I am a GS7 and working on my masters to get a higher GS before I retire.
I spoke to our HR office and they would not give me a definitive answer and told me to ask my Guard unit. I keep looking for any official paperwork on this but haven’t had any luck.
A. You can make a deposit for your years of active-duty service and get credit for that time in determining your total years of service and have it used in the computation of your annuity. If your active-duty time was in discrete segments, you can make a deposit for one, some or all of them. Making a deposit will have no effect on your ability to receive reserve retired pay, nor will it affect any disability payments from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
