Officers debating seeking early retirement from the Marine Corps may want to decide soon depending on their military occupational specialty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officials with the Marines’ Manpower Plans and Policy Division shortened the list of 26 specialties eligible under the Temporary Early Retirement Authority program by 12 for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2015. The changes \u2014 outlined in Marine administrative message 632\/14 \u2014 go into effect Jan. 1, meaning there still is time to apply for early retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The occupational specialties soon to be ineligible for TERA include public affairs officers, military police, certain pilots and counterintelligence specialists, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the Marine Corps officials <\/span>began downsizing shrinkin<\/span>g <\/span>the service<\/span> from a wartime high of 202,000 personnel to 174,000 by 2017, they<\/span>officials <\/span>e<\/span>n <\/span>officials encouraged Marines in overstaffed positions to part ways with the Corps. TERA is one such incentive, but not the only one. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Marines also can accept voluntary separation pay, a lump sum of up to nearly $200,000. As with TERA, similar adjustments are being made to the list of positions eligible for the VSP the <\/span>program, effective Jan. 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n TERA, though, has long been seen as the better option. The program combines several factors to determine partial retirement pensions for outgoing officers, including rank and years served. Those who take early retirement eventually may receive more money than if they took a payout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the shrinking pool of eligible MOSs is any indication, the incentives are working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “TERA is a force-shaping tool. It allows us to release people in MOSs [where] we were<\/span> have overages,” said Yvonne Carlock, spokeswoman for Manpower and Reserve Affairs. “If people are on the list, if <\/span>MOSs are on the list, we still have overages [in those specialties]. If they came off, we have hit our target goals or project to meet our target goals.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be eligible, an officer must have served between 15 and 20 years. Those who are prior enlisted rose up from the ranks of enlisted officers <\/span>must have completed 10 years of commissioned service. However, waivers, though,<\/span> are available for officers in the latter category who have hit the eight-year mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Officers with an MOS not on the list can still take advantage of early retirement, but only if they have been involuntarily passed over for failed to get a <\/span>promotion. \u2013 and not at their request.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Carlock said she could not provide target numbers for the remaining eligible specialties, including infantry, tank, aviation supply and manpower officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n James K. Sanborn contributed to this article<\/i><\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Marine officials shortened the list of specialties eligible for the Temporary Early Retirement Authority program by 12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":33774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":83,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[83,12,15,69],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1950],"class_list":["post-14532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military-benefits","category-news","category-pay-benefits","category-your-marine-corps"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"6IUGPVNASNCITO5I2GK6J4ZYVI","arc_canonical_url":"\/pay-benefits\/military-benefits\/2014\/12\/12\/early-retirement-eligibility-narrowed-for-officers\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n