Danny Noonin

No. You 1Lts and Captains do not "sit on promotion boards". Being their admin bitch boy does not make you part of the actual board. i.e. you do not sit down and grade packages. so to speak. False for O-4+ boards. Can't speak to captains boards. Actual promotion boards absolutely do see all of your OPRs, medal citations and training reports. I don't know what they do at MLRs, but the actual promotion boards do see that stuff.

You do understand that promotion boards don't happen at the base and MAJCOM level and 1Lts don't sit on promotion boards...don't you? Otherwise, good info in your post above.

The SURF is not the document that meets the board. It's the "Officer Selection Record" or something like that. It looks similar to a SURF, but is not the same thing.

Therein lies your biggest problem. MPA days are active duty paid-for man days. The active duty is on to this game and will likely not even give you MPA...because if you get across the 20 year mark on MPA, then active duty is responsible for your retirement bill (not the reserves). The reserves won't want to give you RPA (reseve paid for man days) because then the reserves would be responsible for your active duty retirement bill...and they don't want to foot that bill for a TR. TRs are supposed to be cheaper and funding your active duty retirement bill is not programmed. If someone in the reserve unit is telling you "MPA is available" then they don't really understand how it relates to your situation relative to retirement. MPA may well be available..for other dudes. Active duty is writing the check and they get a vote...and they have definitely started looking at retirement eligibility and sanctuary eligibility before they hand out the days. You are forging new ground here. No one in their right fucking mind would get out of active duty with a couple months to go before hitting the 20 mark. I'm not saying it can't work out. It has repeatedly over the last decade, but most of that was OCO money and no one cared because it flowed like water. Times are different now. You have an uphill battle with absolutely no guarantees, no matter what anyone is telling you. You are risking a lot.

It is great advice. Fucking brilliant to be exact. Don't fuck this up. Too much money at stake. First of all can you even get the reserves to hire you at almost 20? I assume reserves vs guard because you said TR. What story are you going to tell them? Just gonna hang out and demand man days until I can get my points then bolt? Not sure that sells very well. I'm telling you right now I wouldn't be able to hire you and I hire people in the reserves. Second, depending on what kind of job, it might actually take you a while to get your points. Only active duty days count, not drill weekends and not AFTPs. Active duty days put you in sanctuary so no one is going to want to give you mandays because they might end up buying your retirement bill. Plus the man day pot is fucking dry. Which leaves you with your 2 weeks of annual tour to try and get over the hump. Depending on how much time you need, could actually take you many years. If it does take years, you'd be missing out on the AD retirement check for whatever the difference is between when you could have retired off active duty and when you end up retiring from the reserves. Which means that could be the most expensive decision you ever make. I've had a shitload of dudes talk to me over the last few years about getting out at the 17-18 year point thinking they could just easily get to retirement in the reserves. It doesn't necessarily work that way. in fact they have purposely built in obstacles into the system to try and prevent you from doing exactly that. Every one of those dudes thought they had the best idea ever but not one of them had a fucking clue what they were talking about. Not sure if you are clueless or not, but you're asking anonymous dudes on the Internet for advice so I'm not ruling it out. Don't be a dumbass.

Then don't be a dumbass.

If you try to get back into the reserves after being retired, it is possible--but it can be a total asspain. I've seen several folks try this. Most give up after a while due to the pain level. It can take well over a year, even if you haven't been retired for very long. You need to re-do all medical requirements as if you are new, off the street. That is usually the biggest hold up...getting the appointments (you are low priority for slots), getting it through the AFRC surgeon general staff, etc, working out any problems, waivers, etc. If your security clearance lapsed, that's another fiasco. What Cap said about pay is true. You can't "double dip" but the way I understand it you don't give up your full retired pay. Only the days on mil status. You can run the numbers on selling back your active duty time to buy into the ART (civilian-side) retirement system. It can work out in your favor in the long run, but some of that depends on how long you would stay on with the GS side (to include after you hang up the boots on the mil-side). Like I said, it can be done. But gear up for dealing with the slowest, most painful bureaucracy in the world.

If he did, I'm sure the academy geek patrol will rat him out and try to have him expelled for an honor code violation. Then they will have a celebratory marching contest, shoe shining competition and reflective belt inspection where they can give each other demerits in the name of upholding the crucial Air Force standards of dress and appearance upon which the principles of freedom and world-wide democracy rely. At least that's how I imagine life at that ridiculous place.

Really? It is quite clear you are enlisted and not rated, but not because I don't agree with your opinions. It's because you have no grasp of the facts of the rated training pipeline and the officer promotion system.

I think you and I have very different ideas about what "roll call" is supposed to be.

Just be glad I didn't chalk up the lines. We would have had to listen to how it was my fault he hit the floor.

Really?

For fuck's sake man. Do you seriously have to try and rebut every single thing anyone says? Knock it off. Aren't you about to start UPT? If so you better fix your "blame everyone else" problem before you get there or you are in for a painful experience. Your instinct right now is to argue with folks who are trying to help you. Take our points for what they are worth (maybe nothing, maybe a lot) and then shut the flying fuck up. I bet $100 you are right now thinking "I didn't mean to sound like I was rebutting, you just read it wrong"...which is evidence to my point.

The stews we put in first class are all old hags, young gay dudes or trannys. If what you are looking at is not #1 or #2 then look out. Might not have that third drink or you could make a grave mistake.

Actually, no I haven't. The only actual advice I gave out was to read up on your own about financial basics so you can understand things like expenses, loads, risk, diversification, etc. and how those things affect your money. Everything else was simply pointing out the facts about one particular fund and how I felt a specific individual was getting robbed by his financial advisor. Never did I actually recommend anything other than doing some research.

No you weren't. You are getting criticized for throwing a spear at a guy who tried to answer your question. If you don't feel he understood your point well enough to answer what you were really asking then you don't get to take a shot back at him. You can clarify your point, but not with attitude like you did. You're asking for someone to take their personal time to help you. You take what you get. I re-read your first post and I still don't understand what the fuck you are really asking. It's a confusing post. Call me illiterate...or maybe you just can't write coherently. Maybe a little of both. Your second post on the subject was a complete bucket of fuck for sure. My point and his both stand. You appear to need professional advice. Don't come on the internet and ask strangers tax questions, then bitch that their answers didn't live up to your bullshit expectations.

I suggest you quit being a prick. Don't come on here and ask for advice then throw spears at someone attempting to reply to your question honestly--even if it's not quite what you were looking for. I say again...don't ask anonymous people on internet forums for tax advice.

Nice jab there

So, you're on an anonymous internet forum asking pilots for tax advice on which you will make financial decisions? Bad idea jeans. I was going to wear a condom but then I figured "when will I ever make it back to Haiti?"

For someone doing a lot of preaching about leadership, this is piss poor leadership logic. You don't have to draw an imaginary line 10 feet back so that folks don't cross the actual line.

The dude has no shame.

Not according to his website: How are you paid? Your advisor is paid any number of ways, so what you’re looking for is an honest answer. Your advisor should be willing to explain all fees and expenses associated with the investments he or she recommends. Don’t settle for anything less. Dave prefers a commission-based advisor and funds.

What "standards" exactly did this guy not meet?

Not sure if you mis-typed but that statement is not completely true. IAALX is a mutual fund. Period dot. It happens to be where your IRA is, but the fund in and of itself is not an IRA. An IRA is simply a type of account a person can have that has tax advantages (as is a Roth IRA, 401K, etc.). You can have an IRA in mutual funds or a variety of other investments. The IAALX fund is not limited to IRA accounts--you could have a regular, non-tax advantaged account in that fund as well. While it's true that it does invest in other mutual funds (and mutual funds can be invested in many different types if investments, not just stocks), IAALX is a mutual fund that invests mostly in stock mutual funds. So IAALX is predominantly a stock fund--approx 90% of your money is ultimately invested in stocks. If you're "fairly happy", then fine. But I'm trying to help you out here. You appear based on your posts to really have no real clue about investing, fees, loads, diversification, etc. As I've posted before, I used to be clueless. I was advised by someone I "trusted" to put my money into a consistently underperforming, extremely expensive fund. My misplaced trust and naivete combined to cost me a lot of money over the long run. You've said this now a couple of times and I'm wondering if you are confusing the TSP match with some sort of returns. Of course it's a good deal when someone matches your investment. It's free money. But that concept is absolutely independent of any returns you would get on the investment. In this case, since the match is completely unrelated to your IRA (it's in TSP) you need to mentally divorce the two things when you are analyzing the performance of your retirement accounts. I'm trying to help you brother. Whether you follow Dave Ramsey or not, whether you trust his recommended investment advisors or not, YOU need to get smart on this stuff. You owe it to yourself--as do all of the folks on here that don't understand the basics about their money and investing--so you don't get taken. I've said this several times on the forum, but go buy or check out from the library a basic book on investing. I recommend "Investing for Dummies," "Mutual Funds for Dummies," "Personal Finance for Dummies" or something of that sort. They won't make you Warren Buffet but they do a good job of explaining the basics of this stuff at the caveman level. If you read that stuff, I suspect that you will see the light about where your money is truly going and what it could be doing for you if you weren't overwhelmed with loyalty to a guy you've never met (DR). The fund you've chosen (IAALX) is not the worst out there--there are far worse. But it is consistently underperforming both the S&P and against it's category (similar type funds) every single year since it's inception according to what I can find on it. The thing that alarms me about it is that it is extremely expensive--2.2% in expenses per year plus a 1% load. That's really ridiculous. Someone is making a shit ton of money off of you, whether your IRA makes money or not. The question you would have to ask yourself is why would an investment advisor recommend a fund to you that has never even beaten the S&P 500 index? What is it about this fund that makes it the place to put your money? It's certainly not based on a history of strong performance. Possibly your investment advisor has a crystal ball and believes this fund is well positioned for the future, but that hasn't worked out well for you so far. I suspect it's because it's the best way to make him money, not because it's the best way to make you money. I've been there. Some quick hypothetical caveman math may put this in perspective a bit more for you... If you had $50K in IAALX on Jan 1st 2012 and never contributed another dollar, your IRA would be worth $55,930 today (11.86% gain as I type this). Let's assume for the purposes of the discussion that it would be the same on Dec 31. 2.2% in expenses equals roughly $1,200 that you paid over the year for that performance. You would also pay a 1% back end load on all of that money when you withdraw. If you had that same money in the Vanguard S&P 500 index fund, it would have made 15.44% so your $50K would be $57,720. The expenses are a lean 0.17% which is less than $100 for the year with no load--over $1,100 less than you paid (whether you realize that you paid it or not) for lesser performance. The difference is almost $2,000 this year alone not counting the load, so about 4% of your initial $50K more than you have now. Not chump change. If you had put your money in a commonly recommended managed fund--T Rowe Price Growth Stock--it would have gone up over 20% this year. That's about 4 grand more than you made or 8% of your initial hypothetical money. That's really not chump change. I'm sure there are errors in my back-of-an-envelope math, but you at least get the idea. Disclaimer: I'm also only using numbers from this year, so that's not necessarily fair nor is it the complete picture. Obviously they vary from year to year, the long term is what counts, and past performance is not necessarily indiciative of future performance, but like I've said, from what I can see your fund consistently underperforms year after year. And you are paying extra for it to do that. That's the point I'm really trying to get across with regards to IAALX. All I'm saying is that you would do yourself a great service, sts, to learn up on this stuff on your own. If you end up sticking with your plan, so be it. But do so armed with some basic knowledge and make the best decision you can based on logic and facts, not loyalty.

matmacwc is an ART (technician) which is like a combination of GS and traditional (part-time) guardsman. The matching portion comes from the GS side of his job, not the military side.