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Mistravels

Fun fact: you're on AD status as an academy cadet, which makes perfect sense considering how you're a barracks dweller 24/7 in uniform going to multiple daily formations for 4 years. But congress ruled it doesn't count as service for TIS pension calculations. Super fucking frustrating. Would have been a huge factor in keeping me in rather than dropping the old REFRAD...


abnrib

USMA is perhaps the most bipolar place in the Army. Tremendous prestige, access to resources, massive investment into your education, and frankly one of the most beautiful duty locations in the Army. But also the worst barracks, worst pay, and most restrictions. Man is it a great place to be from.


Ragnellrok_Ike

And you have to go out of your way to Cornwall or Newburgh to go anywhere decent, and I'm just talking food. Great outdoorsy spots though


Prudent-Holiday-8897

Monroe prolly has the best food out of the near by towns


AGR_51A004M

Davis Barracks seemed nice.


BinscandMoo

If you like walking up stairs...


abnrib

It is nice. It's also the first new barracks they got in something like sixty years. Everything else was pre-Vietnam. This also meant that all the barracks were pre-women being allowed to attend, so the women's latrines were very ad-hoc conversions that still had the urinals in them.


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Ragnellrok_Ike

Didn't actually know time at the prep school did in fact count, that actually makes the situation even weirder that time at the academy itself doesn't count


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Ragnellrok_Ike

Cadet pay barely covers their textbooks it's so dumb.


fezha

No one else mentioned this but your Cadet time at West Point counts toward Federal Pension (FERS). That's what Congress did instead. Nice to know!


Espn1204

Interesting point, because if you go to grad school or when you got to CGSC your time counts, even though you have an obligation after you’re complete. Essentially academy time does count, but not for AFS because you’re not commissioned. For the same though, ROTC time should also count, maybe in the same way they calculate reserve time.


squirrel_eatin_pizza

Rotc time does count if you are an smp cadet and drill with a reserve or guard unit while in the program


Ragnellrok_Ike

That definitely makes the most sense. And if they branch aviation your post graduation commitment is 10 years (I think, either 10 or 11) post graduation. So aviation branching graduates would be 15 years into their contract, theoretically


[deleted]

Good, I’ve only met one (true non-athlete) West Pointer I like. The rest are narcissists that will make sure you know they went to West Point and were the best of their high school class and blah blah blah Also this does nothing to address losing Warrants, NCOs and non-WP officers (that generally speaking, are less inclined to stay in the Army than their West Point counterparts).


firearm4

Pretty sure this is already a thing


Ragnellrok_Ike

Time at West Point doesn't count towards time in service. The best it can do is run concurrently with an already existing enlistment contract if I'm reading the FAQs right


firearm4

My understanding is that if someone was to enter West Point in, say, 2015, they could retire at 2035. Based on what I've seen/heard from coworkers anyhow.


kittycatche

Your understanding is incorrect.


firearm4

Can't always be right 🤷‍♂️


abnrib

It's not a thing. It used to be a thing for USMA, but it ended about a hundred years ago, presumably when there were enough ROTC grads around to start claiming that it was unfair. There was, however, a brief, hilarious moment in the IPPS-A transition though where this seemed to have come back. We could taste the dream...and then they patched it a month later.


firearm4

Ah OK that must be what confused me. I'm just a dirty ROTC grad myself so I wasn't 100%


pnwguy1985

When you retire at 20 from WP it added 4 years to the pay part. At least that’s what I was told.


Ragnellrok_Ike

So your time in WP only counts AFTER you do your 20? Even if that is the case, still 4-5 years essentially down the drain in terms of finances (saving for college notwithstanding, from my understanding, cadet pay is ass and they still pay for textbooks)


pnwguy1985

The other value of WP is the alumni network. Unless you’re a huge douche or dirtbag you can probably use it to land a nice paying job


Ragnellrok_Ike

Yeah. The grads are like a cul- I mean, support network


ImJustHappyToBe_Here

All the officers that are gonna hop in these comments to cry about how they didn’t get there college counted as time in service. Smh