MY HUSBAND WAS IN THE NAVY FOR 12 YEARS, HE RECENTLY GOT OFFERED A GS POSITION. WE UNDERSTAND THERE IS BUY BACK ACTIVE DUTY TIME SITUATION THAT GOES ALONG WITH THE PROCESS, OUR QUESTION IS CAN HE RETIRE AFTER HE COMPLETES HIS 8 YEARS FOR THE 20 YEARS OF SERVICE OR DOES HE HAVE TO WAIT TILL HE IS IN HIS 60'S TO RETIRE AND GET HIS RETIREMENT PAY? HOW DOES IT ALL WORK AND WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS TO IT?

You are talking about Civil Service Retirement. The rules there are way more complicated with several options available. In addition, as you use other sources to find your answers, be sure that you look at the FERS option, not CSRS, if he is not yet employed by the federal government. This would be a good place to start:

http://www.opm.gov/RETIRE/PRE/FERS/INDEX.ASP

Federal civil servants are given a 4 day seminar in preparation for retirement because of the complexity of the rules and options.

Basically, you cannot retire with 20 years unless you are at least 60 years of age. You can, however, retire at age 62 with 5 years of service. Normal retirement can be taken at age 55 with 30 years of service (including creditable paid back military service). And do not forget - FERS main component is Social Security, and there are no age waivers for GS retirement - so you must wait until you are age eligible for Social Security before you can draw the major portion of the retirement amount.

Benefits - you need to do a lot of research to answer that question relative to Health Insurance, Life Insurance, MWR type benefits on military bases for DOD civilian employees, etc., etc., etc..

This message has been edited. Last edited by: whyworry,

As it stands now, his 12 years is "down the drain" unless he can reenlist active and accumulate 8 more years of active service before age 60. He will then be able to retire as soon as ne has 20 years of active service. So for example, if he is (say) 36, and completes 20 years active service at age 44 he can retire then and start drawing retired pay. Or...
He can go into the reserves and retire after 8 more qualifying years but, retirement will be substantially lower and he will not be able to draw retired pay until age 60. Or...
He can "buy back" his military service by paying a percentage (not sure if 1% or 10%)of his total Base Pay earned over his 12 years and then those 12 years will be credited to his civilian retirement which could be substantially less than his AD military retirement, but more than his reserve retirement.
He can start the buy back when he starts his Federal job and will have 2 years to complete the buy back before interest is charged. But, I doubt he will be able to retire from Federal Service at age 44.