Federal employees can buy back their military time and have the option of making deposits for creditable military service to increase their annuity. This has no effect on other military benefits, such as medical benefits, base access, commissary, or VA benefits, including any disability payments from the VA.
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This is true-- you can “buy back” your military time. The official term is “military deposit” but it is not quite so simple if you are a member of the reserve components and have periods of active duty that are not documented by a DD214.
The whole process is rather absurd, what with sending documents to DFAS that they send back to you. Your pay stubs may not be enough to get credit; you may need to get some kind of verification that you actually performed the duty… that is, if you did not get a DD214 for that period of active duty.
If you retired from active duty, then your military pension will end when you start collecting your civilian pension. Therefore, make sure it is worth the deposit-- the breakeven point seems to be if you retired from active duty as an E-7 or higher you may not want to make a deposit.
If you qualify for a reserve retirement (that is, you don’t collect until age 60) then you get to keep both pensions.
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