Question: My main question is regarding the transferability of the benefits. For those of us in the service approaching retirement, who fall in the "graduated obligated service" category (Para. 3(a-e) of the Memo from the Under Secretary of Defense, 22JUN09), what is the start date of the additional service that we have to obligate. Does the additional years of service start on the day of election to transfer benefits, or does it start from the date you are retirement eligible?

To be more specific, I will use my situation. The date I am eligible to retire is March 11, 2011. According to the 22JUN09 memo, with that retirement date I am required to obligate 2 additional years in order to transfer my GI Bill to my dependents. So where my question comes in is that if I elect to transfer my GI Bill to my dependents as of 01AUG09 (when it officially kicks off), could my retirement date be 01AUG11 (2 years after election to transfer my benefits), or would it have to be 11MAR13 (2 years after my retirement eligibility date). This difference in time-frame does make or break the decision for me.

Answer: The Chief has it right. For everyone in the [question] 01 Aug 09, their required obligated service will be computed from that date. As he is eligible to retire on 11 Mar 11, he will be required to obligate
for 24 months from 01 Aug 09, which puts his earliest possible retirement date at 01 Aug 11.

The way service is computed, Chief will complete two years' obligated service on 31 Jul 09. If you go from 01 Aug 09 to 01 Aug 11, it's actually two years and one day.