L. Brown.
It was $15,000, but they took $3,000 out of it for taxes. When the court said they had to do things correctly and give us a "re-look", if we went back in, we would have to pay the whole $15,000 back and roll the dice over getting some of the $3,000 back from the IRS. I was lucky enough that I was hired as a DA Civilian employee in the same job I had as a Cpt. The grade I qualified for was a significant raise in pay, and since it was overseas, assignment to field grade quarters. This is why I know that what they did during this time did not save necessarily save money "over all". I knew "bucking them" would "mark" me, and since I was Regular Army, I would have to stand twice as many promotion boards (Both RA and AUS) and after things calmed down, they would have twice as many chances to "get" me, during the 10 years I had left until I could retire. One of my friends was a Major with 17 years and 10 months on his release date (if you had 18 years, they had to let you stay until 20), his "re-look" allowed him to make it to retirement and made sense. It was in my best interest to not apply for the "re-look", and I ultimately retired, without regrets, as a civilian employee. The only mistake I made was not joining the reserves, before going back to Germany. As Regular Army, I couldn't "roll over" to inactive reserves, and it turned out that the Reserve unit there was only for current members to stay "current" and didn't accept new members. I believe you have the 60 years of age deal backward; Your friend ( and I , if I had joined the inactive reserves) would have had to wait until he was 60 before he could start drawing the $1,500, and that would continue for life( if he had been married, after his death, his widow would have been entitled to survivor's benefits of around half of that, plus raises).
Mike
