Im in the army and my daughter is 7 yrs old, I have had 7 overses assignments and 4 combat tours.?

I am in a similar situation to yours. I have been in for almost twelve years. My son is six and I have been gone for more than half his life due to deployments to war zones and peacekeeping missions. I had to choose between the benefits of the military and actually getting to be with my family. I chose to get out. I signed a dec statement and will not be sent to Fort Polk and I will not be deploying to Iraq again. The Army will not stop the high tempo deployments for years even if a democrat gets the presidency. Tricare prices keep rising and they've already tried to cut retirement once already. You are the only one that can decide if the retirement pay and tricare is worth missing out on the next seven years of your child's life. I chose my family.

Considering that most overseas assignments are 2 yrs if single, 3 if married with a CONUS tour in between, that's pretty amazing. Even 4 combat tours would be 4 of you 13 yrs. Even if you counted those and the other 3 were Korea (short tours), that's still 7 years. Stateside tours are also 3 yrs. You've only had 2?

Regardless, this is a decision you and your wife have to make. You can take a guard or reserve slot to finish out your retirement. It won't be as soon that you get the check but it's better than wasting the 13 yrs you already have in.

If you love being in the military stay in. Your daughter is still very young. I understand you want to be with her, but just think in 7 more years you can retire and spend the rest of your life getting a check every month to supplement your other income. I was only in the Army for 4 years, and I have always regreted getting out. Its totally up to you. 13 years is a long time.

Here you go. Here's my story.

in Dec, my father died, age 89. He was a vet. He was active, 6 years. He served 2 years before Pearl Harbor,then re-upped and served 4 years,

You could not have a conversation with him without ,sooner or later, hearing,"when I was in the Army." Frankly, we got sick of hearing it.!

If you'd ask him why he didn't got for 20, his reply would be "my mother didn't like Army life"

Now, I'm asking you. If they took you out of the Army, could they take the Army out of you???

This is my own thought. You are 1/3 the way towards the magic 20. Suppose you left? What kind of skills do you have that would lend to a good civilian career??? If you are a truck mechanic,you could easily get a civilian job as a mechanic. If you're an artillery observer, there isn't much of a civilian market for foreword observers.

You have a lot of thinking to do. Frankly, I think,"stay in." I hope you make the decision that is best for you.

Good luck, and thank you for serving.

My husband just recently had to make this decision. He was in the AF for 12 years. He missed a lot of time with his son because of deployments. When we got married, he had already been in for 8 years. We have a daughter together and he was starting to get deployed quite a bit again. Our daughter was having an awful time with this because she is such a daddy's girl. At 12 years my husband made the decision to get out. We were tired of moving and tired of him being gone. My husband found a great job working for a major corporation as an executive. The jobs are are out there you just have to know where to look and how to market yourself.

Only you can make this decision for yourself. Sit down, figure out what type of work you would want to do, figure out how much money you would need to make to live and then just go from there.

I have to tell you that my husband and I are so much happier now that he is out of the miliatry. Our children finally get to grow up in one place. We bought a house and settled in. For the first time we have "normal" lives. Of course there are parts of the military that we miss, but it is nice to have my husband come home from work everyday and to actually get to eat dinner together everynight.

Take care and I wish you the best!

At this juncture, she really doesn't know you anyway, so what's a few more years away from her going to matter? By the time you get out, she'll be a teenager and you'll have missed all her growing up. You can't get that back, so there's no incentive to leave the army. Stay for the full 20 years, and do both of you a favor.

It is a very thoughtful thing to say. Many years ago my daughter moved away to Australia, and I missed her badly. But when I looked into the night sky, I had a realization that she too, would see what I saw. I found that to be very comforting and she didn't seem as far away. You are a kind and loving mom! Have a wonderful weekend! Annie

It is a hard question. If you got out now, what are your job prospects? Do you have training and schooling to get a job that will pay as much as your pay and benefits in the military? Would the job you would get require long work hours or shift work, or a lot of travel for business? Would you come out ahead as far as family time if you went into the civilian world now?

Thirteen years is a lot of time put in and if you put in the next 7 years and take that 20 year retirement you and your spouse and child are set with health insurance with an annual premium that is equal to what a lot of people pay for a one month premium. Your child will qualify for those benefits until she is 21, if she is in college it lasts until she is 23. We've known 2 families that came into the service in order to afford health care for their kids' chronic health problems. One of them had health insurance, but the HMO wouldn't pay for certain tests and treatments when the parents didn't agree with the first couple of doctors' diagnosis. In 3 months they got from the military doctors what they had fought with the HMO about for 2 years.

You'll have a monthly retirement check that is as much as some people make on their regular job that you can add to what you make from your next career. My hubby will retire in 2010 as at least an E-6 so his retirement check will be at least $1500 (minus taxes) every month. That will be our house payment money, he says.

We need the dental insurance too, as the dental check ups are free and all the orthodontic work that my oldest daughter will need, even 50% payment by TRICARE dental will be a BIG help. Even with Retiree Dental premiums being higher than active duty ones, we will still come out ahead of having to pay the whole thing out of pocket.

I'm assuming when you come back you will have 15 years in and be down to having 5 years remaining to make that retirement. That will make your daughter 14 when you retire. Its a tough to know what would be the better choice, what gives her what she needs the most and provides what she (and you and your spouse) will need in the future.

Ask her how she feels about what you do for a living, about how she feels about you being gone. If you stay in close contact with her when you are gone, the negative impacts are minimized.

My kids were 6yrs, 2 months old twins when my husband went to Iraq the first time for 13 months. They were 7, 22 months twins when he went the second time for 12 months and my son was born 6 months into that deployment. He is going again this fall for 15 months and my kids will be almost 10, almost 4 twins and 19 months. He will probably get stuck with a deployment again his last year of service. He could have taken a medical board out and not gone on any of them, but he chose to stay. Then when got back from the first one, he debated whether he made the right choice and thought about dropping papers to take the medical board out. He didn't and we are in for the long haul now. We debate already whether to stay in until the 22 year mark which term limitation for E-6, just so that he can have a bigger retirement and to hold on to TRICARE Prime Active Duty for medical and dental because our oldest requires treatment and counseling for ADD and associated behaviour disorders. Its hard to know if she needs the counseling more or needs her daddy home more. .

Its a heavy decision. Weigh the pros and cons VERY carefully.

Best of luck and know that a lot of us are weighing that heavy decision, you are not alone.

do you have a job waiting for you when you leave service? what will you do? my friends who served had some tough time finding a job. most of them became police officers. i know the military has some kind of program with the police, you should find out. they get paid better, and you can spend time with your family. plus all the benefits you had before, the health care, retirement plan, and money will be the same once you a police officer.

I understand what you're saying. You only have a few more years to go until you qualify for retirement. Have you asked your children how they feel about you being gone on and off? I think their response to that question will lead you in the right direction to the answer you are looking for. Good luck!