Tag Archives: TAMP

Getting schooled…

Posted by Mike Grice on

I left my last post with the observation that there were three major undertakings that I needed to accomplish before I could consider my transition completed: first, transition training and education, second, administration, and third, medical evaluations.

In terms of timing, the transition and education bit comes first, and here’s why: the administration of transition as well as the medical evaluations are largely based on a timeline that is centered around your transition date.  The transition training and education, however, are not not.  Instead, the opportunity to educate yourself and learn about the transition process is available pretty much whenever you would like to take advantage of it whereas the other areas are closely tied to when you are actually departing the service.

Much to my chagrin I learned that I was eligible to attend classes and seminars on transition and retirement whenever I wanted.  It was quite the revelation!  Had I only known that I could learn about the other side long before I actually decided to retire it would have made the whole process a lot easier, but to be honest the thought had never crossed my mind.  I was too busy travelling around the world and serving in places notorious for the bad food, scorching deserts, and angry locals.  That said, here are the opportunities that exist to learn about the transition process, well, at least those that are relevant to my situation as a retiring senior Marine officer in Southern California:

-TAP (everything is an acronym! it stands for Transition Assistance Program) which is also known for some reason as TAMP (which stands for the Transition Assistance Management Program).  I really don’t know if there is a difference between the programs, but it falls in line with the military’s love affair with acronyms- adding an “M” between “A” and “P” is certainly an improvement!  I hope somebody got a medal out of it.  At any rate, the TAP (or TAMP) program is both mandated and required to actually separate from the service.  Designed for those separating from the service after serving a hitch or two, it It covers the legal, medical, and administrative requirements for transition as well as a lot of information of how to write a resume, what to wear to an interview (which is a HUGE deal for those of us who have not updated our duds since skinny leather ties and white shoes were all the rage) and how to get a job.  This class is of enormous importance because you cannot get out without attending it; your final check out sheet (a document of epic importance that rates a post of its own) will not have the required notation that allows you to stop getting your hair cut and quit wearing a uniform.  It lasts about a week, during which time attendance is mandatory and is the appointed place of duty for the participant.  This is important, because unlike high school or college, you can get thrown into the brig for skipping class.  Needless to say there is rarely a need for a truant officer to go round up class-skipping delinquents…

-OUT, or Officers Under Twenty class.  This particular class is for officers who are separating from the service but do not meet the requirements for retirement.  Generally speaking, these officers are Lieutenants and Captains who have completed their obligated service of four to six years and who are going back to the civilian world.  It is very similar to the TAP/TAMP class, but focuses at the college graduate level as opposed to the high school graduate level.  They don’t spend too much time on how to dress or what to wear, though, because these young officers are still generally in their twenties and their wardrobes haven’t aged to the point of embarrassment.

-Pre-Retirement TAP/TAMP course.  This course is TAP/TAMP for those who are going to retire after at least twenty years of active service.  It is designed for the more “distinguished” amongst us (myself included) who are greying at the temples and are at a different place in their lives than a 22 year old who will use his or her benefits to go to college or a trade school.  It covers the same required topics on benefits and whatnot as the other TAP/TAMP courses, but has additional lectures and classes on things like becoming an entrepreneur, networking, etc.

-25+ Pre-Retirement Seminar.  More of a symposium than a seminar, this one is not required but is strongly encouraged and recommended for those who, again, have been for a loooong time.  It does not go into the benefits and administration of retirement, but instead focuses on life on the other side of the fence.  In addition to job search and assistance with developing a new career there are several guest lecturers who cover topics ranging from financial management for retirement as well as financial management as a career, how to go into business for yourself with a franchise or on your own, and how to dress for success.

-Ruehlin Seminar.  This course is a week-long seminar that caters to senior officers and enlisted who are retiring- the definition of senior being length of service and advanced rank.  There is often a difference- it is possible to retire after 20 or 25 years but not be at a senior rank; for example, many officers began their careers as enlisted members- and that service counts towards retirement.  As such, they may have over two decades of service, but are retiring as relatively junior officers.  Also, some enlisted members may have the same length of time in uniform but for whatever reason do not achieve higher rank.  At any rate, this course is very small (around fifteen or so attendees), and is focused specifically on the process of starting a new career and all of the job hunting skills necessary to do so.

So there you have it.  Five different courses, seminars, or classes that anyone eligible can attend.  Amazing!  Each one is a little different in its focus and intent, but each provides a slew of information that is invaluable to one on the path to transition.  In my particular case, I attended the Pre-Retirement TAP/TAMP course as well as the 25+ Pre-Retirement and Ruehlin Seminars.  Suffice it to say the wisdom I gained under the tutelage of the experienced and dedicated instructors was remarkable and very welcome.  Without it I would have been not just a bumbling fool stumbling along until I found myself unemployed, but I would have missed out on education and training that my contemporaries in the private sector pay thousands of dollars for.

In my next string of posts I will go into much greater detail for each of the courses that I attended, starting with the required Pre-Retirement Transition Assistance (Management) Program, or TAP/TAMP.

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Lessons learned:

– Start early!  I was pretty far down the path to transition before I began attending classes.  I found myself sitting with no small number of more prescient Marines and Sailors who were years away from transitioning but were smart enough to start learning about it early.  All that is required to attend the classes is permission from your command (in civilian parlance, that means your boss has to say it is OK to miss work for a few days) and a commitment to attend the course in its entirety because seating is often limited.

– Find out which courses are most suited to your situation.  If you are getting out after four years, then obviously the Pre-Retirement courses are not for you.  You may be in a situation, however, where you may not be eligible for a “senior” retirement seminar due to not having over 25 years in uniform, but there may be an empty slot you can take advantage of.  Contact your local transition program coordinator to see what is available.  Take every opportunity you can to educate yourself!

Learning from “The List”

Posted by Mike Grice on

I left the retirement counselor’s office with a smile on face.  He had given me exactly what I needed to chart my course for transition: a comprehensive checklist of tasks to perform along with a roster of contacts that would help me get those things done.  Happily I sat down and took a good look at the list.

It was several pages long, and I won’t bore you with the mundane and excruciating details, well, at least not all of them! I read through the whole packet and pondered what to do.  Should I just start at the top of the list and charge through until I reached the end, or was there a more logical way to complete the rather lengthy assignment?

The first two lines made me chuckle:

RETIREMENT CHECKLIST
I. CHECKLIST

More repetition!  It only makes sense that the “Retirement Checklist for Retirees” would have a Checklist as the first item in the Retirement Checklist section.  Maybe I could just read every other line and still get all the information I needed?

Nope.  The checklist’s first bullet, which was next line on the paper quickly got my attention:

􀃎12-24 months before separation:

Ack!  I was only about nine months from the big day.  According to the list I was already over a year behind, and I just got started!

Yikes!

I took a deep breath and read through the entire document (which you can read too- just follow the link in the blogroll).  It was arranged in reverse chronological order in a countdown of sorts to the date of retirement.  Beginning two years out, it quickly went to six, and then three months before retirement.  Since I had already missed out on over a year of preparatory work, I decided to ditch performing the checklist as written and instead to figure a different way to get everything accomplished.

What I found was that there are basically three facets of the retirement process, so I reorganized the checklist into those three areas and then arranged the various subtasks in order of importance and time sensitivity- basically, the things that I needed to do right away hit the top of the list and those that could wait migrated towards the bottom.  By regrouping the dozens of things to be done it made them more manageable, and hopefully I would be able to accomplish them more efficiently.  The basic areas I came up with after studying the checklist were 1) transition training and education, 2) administration, and 3) medical evaluations.

Transition training consisted primarily of a series of seminars and classes that prepare the “separating or retiring service member” (me!) for return to civilian life.  As a retiring Marine (meaning I have more grey hair and wrinkles than those who were separating after only few years of service) I was required to attend one course and was eligible to attend two more.  The required class, called the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) Employment Workshop, is necessary for each and every person on their way out of the military despite their length of service.  It covers a lot of really important topics ranging from veteran’s benefits to tax rules, and you can’t get out (at least not legally!) without attending it.  The other two courses were designed for more senior (again, the “distinguished” looking grey haired and wrinkled set) people like me, and they are designed to help with resume writing, and other important job skills.

As for administration, this area addresses the nuts and bolts of leaving an incredibly bureaucratic profession.  There are forms to fill out, papers to sign, and about a billion things to read and initial.  The administrative boxes to check ranged from deciding where you would establish your home after the service (back where you enlisted from?   Where you live now?  Tahiti?  They all have their upsides and downsides…..but you can only choose one!) to what uniform you will wear to your retirement ceremony.  The administrative requirements ran for several pages and would take a long time to accomplish, but fortunately many of the items could be knocked out simultaneously as I met with various administration specialists, which is what we call Human Resources experts in the military.

The medical bit is just as important as the administrative requirements, and is likewise just as lengthy.  For all separating and retiring servicemembers the physical evaluation and rating for disability has potentially the greatest impact on them of any part of the transition process.  Many people departing military service will have developed some physical problems that will follow them for the rest of their lives, and if they are properly evaluated and documented then they are eligible for medical care long after they take off their uniform.  (After all, carrying a 75 to 100 pounds of equipment on your back while patrolling in 120 degree heat for weeks on end takes a toll on the knees just as operating a tank, flying a helicopter, or shooting artillery will likely make you a bit hard of hearing…what did you say?) It is crucial that these problems be evaluated while in uniform, however, because if they aren’t a bureaucratic nightmare awaits should you try to get them evaluated as an ex-servicemember.

So, after revising the checklist into these three areas I set out to check each box on the list as quickly and efficiently as I could.  With less than nine month to go until my retirement date, I immediately attacked those items that I was delinquent on and started emailing and calling the points of contact on the first page of the checklist to schedule everything else.  It was going to be a bumpy ride, but at least I knew when it would end!

In future posts I will go into greater detail on the three areas on my revised list, starting with transition training.  I had no idea how little I knew about how to quit my job, but the transition classes would ensure that I didn’t punt anything into the stands.  All I need to do is check every box on the list…

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Lessons learned:

– First and foremost, time is incredibly important.  The recommendation is to start transitioning two years before you take off your uniform because it takes that long to do everything properly and at a leisurely pace.  I started transitioning with less than half of that time, and as a result I find myself working a lot harder than I need to to get everything done.

– As soon as you make the decision to get out or retire you need to get organized!  Obtain a copy of the appropriate checklist (retirement or separation) and start checking things off as far out as you can.  Even if you have not decided on a firm date, there are things that can be accomplished easily (such as reviewing your personnel and medical records for accuracy and researching where you would like to go when you get out).

– Find out what administrative section will be processing your separation or retirement and schedule a meeting with them.  They can provide you with contacts and guidance that you can put to good use immediately, and without the time wasted by adventure learning and trying to do it all yourself as I had done initially.

Cracking the code

Posted by Mike Grice on

Although I didn’t know it at the time, the act of officially setting a retirement date set a lot of things in motion about which I had no idea.  My name was placed on a few lists here and there, and soon enough I began to receive emails and phonecalls asking me to set up appointments and attend transition courses.  It seemed a bit random at first, but all became clear when I met again with the transition specialist.  Now that I had established a solid date, I could move forward with the myriad tasks ahead of me- tasks that I really didn’t know too much about.

As I sat in the standard issue uncomfortable government issued chair beside his standard issue faux wood desk he noticed my blank stare and handed me what appeared to be an unremarkable handful of papers with a government issued staple in the corner.

I looked at the first page and saw that much of my future sleuthing about to find points of contact would be unnecessary.  “Retirement Contact Numbers” it proclaimed at the top, and below the title were over a dozen phone numbers of the various people and organizations that I would be required to coordinate with as I transitioned.  Sure enough, I discerned the names and email addresses of some of the people who had been contacting me, seemingly out of the blue.  Aha, I thought- a method to the madness.  Good stuff!

I turned the page, and read words that set my heart racing.

“RETIREMENT CHECKLIST FOR RETIREES” it said.  Despite the repetitive syntax (although there may be a Retirement Checklist for non-retirees I suppose), it was exactly what I needed.

To a Marine, and I suspect all servicemen and women, checklists hold a disproportionate level of elevated importance.  Pretty much everything we do can in some way be distilled down to a list with little boxes next to every line, boxes that beg to be checked as you perform whatever it is that the list is for.  Checklists rule pretty much every aspect our martial lives…

As a recruit I learned everything about the military by the numbers in checklist fashion, from how to lace my boots (“One-Grasp the laces in both hands!  Two- Insert the aglet in the lowermost eyelets, and cross the laces left over right until you run out of eyelets!) to the intricacies of the M-16 (“There are eight steps in the cycle of operation of the M-16A1 service rifle!  They are firing, unlocking, extracting, ejecting, cocking, feeding, chambering, locking….and don’t you forget it!!).  Our undershirts were folded according to the unyeilding inspection requirement that they neatly fit into 6″ by 6” squares and our socks were rolled into precise little balls that, despite their olive drab color, were reminiscent of meatballs in some fine Italian restaurant.

The predilection for neatly arranged lists followed me through my career.  Just as corporate managers dread the arrival of a clipboard toting efficiency expert, military types cringe at the sight of a clipboard toting inspector.  Necessary evils perhaps, but they share the same method of accounting and delivery- a bit of paper with a grade at the top, based on how well each item was scored on the checklist.  And, of course, everything gets inspected in the military, so there is almost a perpetual state of anxiety that induces ulcers and makes one long for the simplicity of a firefight with Al Queda or the Taliban.

Checklists have been thoroughly and completely etched into my psyche.  I use them for everything, or at least for everything that I need to get done.  In combat we used them to ensure that we had everything we needed (Grenades?  Check!  Ammo?  Check!  Water?  Check!), and at home I write a list of household tasks with little boxes next to them and earnestly attempt to check them off as quickly as possible.  My meeting at the retirement office was neatly written next to a tiny rectangle in my notebook, and as soon as my meeting was done I would gleefully put a tiny “x” with the box and move on to the next entry.

But I digress.  The arrival of this particular checklist produced the anti-cringing emontion of pure joy.  It was the Rosetta Stone that translated all of the gibberish of retirement into an organized and comprehensive compendium of every box I needed to check in order to complete the transition process.  Hugging the packet to my chest, I rose from the standard issue uncomfortable government issued chair and floated out of the  retirement office, marking the little box on my own checklist and happily setting out to check every box on my newly acquired agenda.  More on that in the next post.

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Lessons learned:

– All of the answers you need are out there.  You just need to know where to go to find them, and in typical military fashion I can guarantee that there is checklist out there somewhere that will greatly aid you in your transition.

-I should have asked for the checklist up front instead of just blankly staring at the counselor until he took pity on me and handed it over.  One of your first stops once you decide to retire is the administration shop that will be processing your retirement as they have a wealth of information and advice that they will cheerfully provide.  All you need to do is ask.

Dashed upon the rocks of reality, or how I came to realize how much of a knucklehead I really was!

Posted by Mike Grice on

As I was saying in my last post, going from decision to reality when it comes to transition is a whole lot harder than I had anticipated.  Much to my surprise and chagrin, I was not nearly as savvy at the ins and outs how things work as I thought I was!

I have been around the block a few times in my career, and was smugly secure in my assumption that all I really needed to do was tell my admin shop that I was retiring.  After all, that was one of the things that administrators were for, weren’t they?  Didn’t they administrate, and wasn’t processing a retirement simply an administrative process?

Well, yes and no.  Yes it is administrative, but no, it is not simple, as have learned and continue to learn.

As I sat at the desk of the retirement counselor, I was sure that I had figured out everything I needed to know in order to get the retirement ball rolling.  That happy assumption was dashed upon the rocks of reality when he cheerfully told me that I couldn’t retire yet.  After my head got done exploding and my guts unwrenched, I asked him why.  Because, he said, you are not eligible to retire yet.  The pressure between my temples shot back up, and I the room started to spin…

Backing up a bit, the basis of my smugness was that I did what I always have done during my career- I prepared for the meeting with the retirement counselor by doing my homework.  I logged into the Marine Corps website and surfed to the retirement section, where I started researching how to retire.  There was a wealth of information (including a nifty letter from the Commandant commending retirees for their service- very classy!) that I read through to prepare.  In particular I read the MARCORPSEPSMAN, which is Marine-speak for the Marine Corps Separations and Retirement Manual (never say in six words that which you can say in one barely pronouncable super-contraction), which had all the information that I thought I needed.  Boy was I wrong!

My assumption that I could announce my retirement was based on some calculations that are articulated in the manual.  Here is how it works:  there are several key dates that pertain to your career, and these are the Pay Entry Base Date (PEBD-more acronyms!  Yay!), the Armed Forces Active Duty Base Date (AFADBD), End of Active Service (EAS), and a few others that I will throw out along the way.

The PEBD is the day that you raise your right hand and swear to support and defend this great nation of ours.  For some people, that is the day they ship out for recruit training, but for most people there is a gap between signing the contract and swearing in and heading out for the apocryphal yellow footprints, which are the actual painted yellow footprints, located on the grounds of the Marine Corps Recruit Depots, that are every Marine recruit’s initiation on how to stand with your heels together and your feet at a 45′ angle whilst being informed by your new bestest friends what a baaaaad idea it was to sign on the dotted line.  At any rate, I digress.

The time gap between signing and shipping is filled with what is known as the Delayed Entry Program, or DEP (another acronym!).  The recruit or officer candidate signs the contract and swears in, establishing his or her PEBD.  After a period of time, the recruiter shows up at the door and gives the unsuspecting recruit a ride to the airport, whereupon the hard part begins- recruit training or officer candidate school.  The day that the recruiter picks you up is your AFADBD; the day that your active duty begins.  Your retirement is calculated based on your AFADBD- you are eligible for retirement 20 years and 1 day after your AFADBD.  The AFADBD only counts time on active duty, so your DEP doesn’t count, and neither does any time that you spend off of active duty (for example, you get out and come back in or are in the reserves or National Guard).

For enlisted Marines and junior officers, their time in service is determined by the length of their enlistment contract.  Generally along the lines of four years or so (a little different for officers), and it begins with your PEBD.  So, now we have three different dates: PEBD, AFADBD, and EAS.  PEBD is when you sign up, AFADBD is when you ship out, and EAS is when you get out.  Pretty simple so far.

Except for my case.  I have both active duty and reserve service, which takes the simple and makes it complicated!  I initially enlisted into the reserves for eight years.  What that meant was that I had a PEBD, which has remained unchanged throughout my entire career.  I had an AFADBD on the day I shipped to bootcamp, and my active duty time continued until I was released from active duty and entered reserve status, whereupon my AFADBD became obsolete because it only applies to active duty types.

After a great time in the reserves, I finished my undergraduate degree and made the commitment to be an active duty officer, should I survive OCS.  With that decision, several of the dates I wrote about earlier changed.  My PEBD stayed the same (because I had no “broken” time in which I was not serving on either active duty or in the reserves) but I established a new AFADBD and a new EAS.  My new AFADBD was the day I shipped to OCS, and my new EAS was 42 months later (again, officer’s contracts are slightly different than the standard four year gigs for enlisted types).   After a year on active duty, my status changed from being a reserve officer to a regular officer (known as “augmentation” in the Marine Corps), and my EAS changed from an actual day on a calendar to “Indefinite”, which means that I served until I either quit or got thrown out.  Or retired, as I was trying desperately to do when I sat down with my counselor.

Easy enough.  I should be able to retire 20 years and one day after my AFADBD, right?  But what about my reserve time? Does any of that count?

Why, yes it does!  And that takes me back to the shocking revelation with the retirement counselor.  The time that I had served on active duty during my reserve contract counted towards retirement, and even though I had studied the arcane and byzantine rules and regulations applying to retirement rules and had done the math to show that I had enough time to retire, that wasn’t good enough.

I needed proof.  Lots of proof.

It turns out that even though we have a lot of records in computer databases and whatnot, there are a lot of records that aren’t so digitally available.  It turns out that since I enlisted back when Reagan was in his first term and typewriters were all the vogue, there were no digital records to prove that I had served.  Even though there was a document that showed my service (called the Career Retirement Credit Report, or CRCR for more acronymical dominance) there was no digital copy of the source documentation to provide a record of my service.

I needed to actually show, with original documents, that I had been in the reserves.  More importantly, I needed documentation of each and every day that I served on active duty during my reserve time, because each active duty day (for training, deployments, and such) would count towards my AFADBD, in effect moving it backwards in time.

Holy mackarel!  I needed documents pushing three decades in age!  Whatever to do?

Fortunately for me (and to the chagrin of my wife) I am a bit of a pack rat.  In a box somewhere in my garage there lay a folder, and in that folder was every Leave and Earnings Statement (LES for you acronym lovers!), which is the pay stub for military types.  So, donning my best felt hat and with a whip in one hand and a flashlight in the other, I did my best Indiana Jones impersonation and went spelunking into the depths of my garage (anyone who has seen it can attest to the heroism I displayed that day) and found the folder!

Happy day!  I blew the dust off of the folder and sorted through the pile of dot matrix documents.  I sat down at the kitchen table to sort through the three inch thick sheaf of brittle paper, and a couple of hours later I had a source document for every day I had served on active duty during my reserve service.

Unfortunately, it was there that things got complicated.  My counselor informed me that he was happy I had found the documents, but that there was nothing he could do with them.  For that, I needed to go higher.  A lot higher.  Up to the Headquarters of the United States Marine Corps, where there was someone, somewhere, who could help me.

Since I was (and still am) happily living in the San Diego area, the requirement to bring my pile of papers to an office in Northern Virginia presented some problems.  That is when I abashedly swallowed my smugness and looked around for some help, and that is where seeking the advice and help of others comes in.  After sleuthing about and doing my own adventure learning and research, it was time to admit that I couldn’t do it all myself.

I made some calls, and realized what an idiot I had been to try to do it all on my own!  More on that in the next post…

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The main reason I am writing this blog is to help others as they transition.  In order to best help, I am putting the salient lessons on transition for the post at the end, under the line at the end of the post.  Anyhow, here are the takeaways for this post:

– Do your research.  Find out what rules and regulations apply to your situation (service, active/reserve time, etc.)  before you talk to someone.  That will help you have a much more intelligent conversation than I had, and will smooth out the rough spots.

– Get your administrative ducks in a row.  Make a folder of all pertinent information (LESs, enlistment contracts, dates of commission, etc.). This is particularly important for reservists and those with reserve or broken service, as there may be no other copy of the documents you have.

– Do what I didn’t do- talk to people and get advice!  I didn’t, and it set me back a month or so as I pulled my head out and organized my files.

– Links to various agencies and documents that I refer to are on the blogroll to the right of the text.  I added the MARCORSEPSMAN and a few others today.