Military May Give Some Personnel Early Retirement After 15 Years

WASHINGTON - Starting next September, the Defense Department will offer selected military personnel an unprecedented opportunity to retire with only 15 years of service.

The program, which has yet to receive final approval, could put as many as 62,000 men and women in the civilian job market in the next four years.

Those who take the offer would draw smaller pensions than they would receive under the regular retirement program. The regular plan requires at least 20 years of service to qualify for a pension amounting to half of base pay.

The new program is likely to be received enthusiastically both by service officials and by personnel with 15 or more years service who see career opportunities drying up as the military reduces its strength.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 62,000 personnel would be eligible for early retirement from 1994 to 1998. If all accept it, the government would save $4 billion.

The military will shrink from 1.6 million active personnel in the so-called Base Force to 1.4 million under a plan endorsed by Defense Secretary Les Aspin.

The idea for a 15-year retirement program was first outlined last year by Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Nunn said the voluntary separation payments already voted by Congress would be used primarily by military members with less than 15 years' service, as the Navy statistics have since confirmed.

"The military services understandably are very reluctant to (forcibly) separate people with 15 to 20 years of service because (they) are so close to the 20-year retirement point. However, the 225,000 people in this category represent 12 percent of the active-duty force," Nunn said.

"Unless some reductions are made in this group, the services will be left with . . . too many senior officers and noncommissioned officers," Nunn said.

Nunn's idea was opposed by top Pentagon officials.

In a Feb. 1 article in the Air Force Times, Christopher Jehn, the former manpower chief in the Pentagon, wrote that offering 15-year retirement "to personnel with little or no potential (like twice-passed-over majors) . . . would enrage stronger performers who would not be offered such a lucrative package."

Air Force Staff Sgt. Robert Crawford disagreed. In a published rejoinder to Jehn, he pointed out that with a 15-year retirement program, poor performers "would be retirement-eligible and could be selected for early retirement."

In the fiscal 1993 defense bill, Congress authorized a temporary 15-year retirement program through fiscal 1995. The program was not implemented by the Bush administration, but sources said that in fiscal 1994 the services will be authorized to offer 15-year retirement to selected personnel.

A staff sergeant who would normally retire at 20 years and receive half his base pay, or $10,600 per year, could retire with 15 years and receive about 37 percent of base pay, or $7,600 per year - an average lifetime savings to the taxpayer of about $50,000.