Unfortunately, no; but, I shall default to a response from Jason Perry as annotated above.
In retrospect, I was informed about the DEP fact by my U.S. Army Recruiter many years ago; if I recall accurately!
To that extent, his verbalized DEP fact was validated upon my entry onto Active Duty when my military longevity pay was credited with the time I served in the DEP and I received no additional active federal service time; that's recalled accurately!
Thus, I quite often comment that "possessing well-informed knowledge is truly a powerful equalizer."
Best Wishes!
Glad everyone posted their take on this.
In my situation, I had DEP time - the time between the day I signed an active duty military service contract and the day I actually entered active duty service (the flight day to my boot camp).
I was told way back then that my DEP time counted toward pay/promotion or something like that, but it didn't count toward everything like AD time can count.
Thanks for making this clear. I do know that my DEP time DID count toward which method DFAS used to calculate my IDES disability retirement pay. I signed my first military contract BEFORE 08 SEP 1980. And even though I didn't enter Active Duty military Boot Camp until 31 DEC 1980, I was still credited with the "Final Pay" retirement calculation and DFAS did NOT use the "High 36" calculation.
The difference between the "Final Pay" and the "High 36 Average" resulted in an initial gross, pre-tax difference of 280.00 per month MORE in my enlisted disability pay retirement calculation.
Not that I see anything BIG from it due to the off-set right now. BUT, it does make a difference on the fact I do get some DoD retirement now (280 more than a "High 36" calculation amount), and will get CRDP shortly.
Every little bit adds up.
And because the WTU IDES process took soooo long to get through, I was able to jump over that "8 year rule" hurdle early in this IDES event (which didn't need to be applied in my case anyway, but at least it couldn't be used against me!), and, I was able to cross the retirement finish line with a NG 20-year letter six weeks prior to PDRL discharge, a retirement letter I would have never received and CRDP I would have never received had this IDES process been any quicker than it was.
In the end, had I NOT been injured while on AD, I would NOT have had to worry about the 8-year rule, and, more than likely, I would have made my retirement from the NG in the usual "healthy and normal" fashion, meaning CRDP (or lack of it) would not have EVER become a concern when injured while mobilized.
The 8-year rule, the 20 "Good" years for NG/AR retirement, and CRDP only came up as issues AFTER I was injured-while AD mobilized and undergoing he IDES process.
That's a lot of additional and unnecessary stress to put on an injured Servicemember who has spent the bulk of their adult citizen-soldier working lifetime in service to this nation as a NG/AR Servicemember. The not knowing of how and even if you will even get ANY retirement for all the years of service you spent as a "volunteer/voluntold" is a disconcerting thing to have to go through.
This whole IDES retirement thing is so full of landmines, it got to be a real pain in the arse for me to navigate and get through it. It seemed like everything I had worked towards for sooo many years had now become retirement-at-stake issues - issues that would have never become issues to begin with had I never been mobilized AND injured while on Active Duty Service to my nation and branch of service.
V/r,
nwlivewire