Your pension is a seven-figure asset. Most planning treats it like a paycheck.
Five guides that show career officers and senior NCOs how to protect what they’ve earned, and build on top of it. Open to read, start anywhere.
By Scott Tucker · Founder, US VetWealth
During your career, your income and protection were handled for you. At retirement, that flips.
The pension you earned becomes the largest asset you will ever hold, and you are young and healthy enough to do something with it.
This is the shift the rest of the library builds on.
Three moves, in order.
The arc map orients the lateral library, then reappears as a light progress marker at the top of each guide.
Start with the decision in front of you.
Five guides, open to read, each with its own calculator. Pick your rank for the SBP decision, or go straight to the full strategy.
SBP Decision Guide: O-5
What SBP actually costs at O-5 pay, the long-term math, and the private alternative side by side.
SBP Decision Guide: O-6
Higher pay, higher stakes: the numbers, the joint decision with your spouse, and the War Chest alternative.
SBP Guide for Senior NCOs
How E-8s and E-9s replace SBP with a death benefit their family actually keeps.
The War Chest Strategy Guide
The full system: IUL, term life, pension maximization, and the SBP alternative, from the ground up.
TSP and Retirement Income
Turn your TSP from a savings balance into retirement income you can count on, on top of your pension.
Privatize. Protect. Profit.
Life insurance as a third asset class, alongside your pension and your TSP. Built for officers and senior NCOs who’ve earned a pension and want to protect it, and build on top of it.
Take SBP out of the government’s hands.
Run the math on what SBP costs over 30 years, what it pays, and whether a private alternative does more for your family. Most people make the call without running that comparison.
Read the SBP Guides →Use life insurance as a third asset class.
Alongside your pension and TSP, a properly structured policy builds tax-advantaged cash value that doesn’t depend on market performance.
Read the War Chest Guide →Turn your TSP into protected retirement income.
Your TSP is a savings balance. A fixed indexed annuity can turn it into a guaranteed income stream that lets you take calculated risks everywhere else.
Read the TSP Guide →Three calculators. Each built around a specific question you need to answer.
Your numbers, your rank, your timeline. Run the actual math on your retirement.
SBP Decision Education & Analysis
The full SBP education, true lifetime cost using official DOD actuarial data, and a side-by-side War Chest comparison. Built for anyone facing an irreversible SBP deadline.
Illustrative example. Your number depends on your rank, pay, and health.
Run the SBP analysis →War Chest Wealth Insurance Builder
Design your private pension alternative. Enter your age, health class, and funding level, and get an illustration projection showing cash value growth and tax-advantaged income potential over your specific timeline.
Illustrative projection, not a guarantee. Results vary by age, health, and funding.
Build your War Chest →Military Retirement Income Comparison
Enter your TSP balance, pension, and timeline. Compare your full retirement income, existing portfolio strategy versus the War Chest approach, including market risk and tax implications for each path.
Illustrative. Actual results depend on your balance, timeline, and markets.
Compare your income picture →Two full-length books: case studies, real scenarios, and complete analysis.
The Military Retiree’s Guide to SBP vs. Life Insurance
Full SBP policy mechanics, VGLI comparison, and 30-year cost analysis, with case studies across officer and NCO rank and pay scenarios.
The TSP Rollover Blueprint
The complete case for rolling TSP into a fixed indexed annuity: rollover mechanics, FIA structure, income projections, and case studies at different balance sizes and timelines.
Both books, free. Enter your email, delivered to your inbox instantly.
A gap in military retirement planning that standard advice leaves out.
Scott Tucker
The standard playbook, whether it’s military financial readiness guidance, what the money media covers, or what most financial planning defaults to, is built around one core assumption: accumulate, allocate by age, diversify. That’s reasonable advice for most people. But if you’ve spent a career as an officer or senior NCO, you’re not in the same situation as most people. And the planning that fits your situation doesn’t look like theirs.
When you retire from the military in your 40s or 50s, something changes in what’s actually available to you. You have a guaranteed pension creating a baseline of income. You likely have TSP savings and a higher net worth than you’ve had at any point in your life. You’re still young and healthy enough to qualify for tools that weren’t relevant before. The tax-advantaged strategies built around properly structured life insurance become a real third asset class alongside your pension and TSP. That’s the part of the equation that’s been left out.
Here’s what I hear from nearly every career military retiree I talk with: they didn’t serve 20-plus years to beat the market. They served to earn a pension, guaranteed income, for life, for their family. Protect what I’ve built. Turn my other assets into income I can count on. Don’t make me anxious about the next economic cycle every time I want to decide what comes next.
I entered this profession in 2008, focused on the military community from day one. I have my own military background, and many of the people I’ve worked with are friends and classmates now commanding brigades as full bird colonels. Over 18 years I’ve had more than 500 conversations with military families. The pattern is always the same: real options sitting just outside the plan they were handed.
To the mission that comes after the mission,
Scott Tucker
- West Point graduate, Class of 2002
- Served as an Army officer in Operation Iraqi Freedom
- 18 years focused exclusively on career military and military retirees
- 500+ conversations with military families across officer and NCO ranks
- Published author, two books on military retirement planning
- Licensed life & health insurance professional
- Independent, not captive to any carrier or product line
- Host, Military Retirement Blueprint podcast
The Next Step
Who you’re dealing with, and what happens next
Before you book a call, here’s who you’d be talking to, how we get paid, and exactly what the process looks like.
Who you’re dealing with
We’re not your financial advisor, and we’re not here to manage your money. US VetWealth is a specialist brokerage. We build one layer of your retirement, the life insurance and annuity layer most planners aren’t set up to handle, and we leave the rest of your plan alone.
Because we work across the market instead of one company’s shelf, the design answers to your situation, not to a quota.
How we get paid
You’re right to ask. We don’t charge planning fees, we don’t take a percentage of your assets, and we don’t manage your money.
If you put a strategy in place through us, the carrier pays us, the same way it works with any insurance brokerage. Going through us doesn’t add a cost on your side, and we’ll walk you through the economics on any call.
What happens next
You reach out. Before we say anything, we look at your actual picture: your pension, VA situation, TSP, and family.
One conversation. We map the decisions that actually matter for you. You leave with clarity on your options, not a product recommendation.
If the strategy fits, we design it together, run the numbers, and show you what it costs and why it works.
Nothing here commits you to anything. You don’t have a strategy until you choose to fund one, and looking costs you nothing but an hour of your time. If it doesn’t beat what you already have, you’ve lost nothing and you know exactly where you stand.
A strategy call runs about 45 minutes. You leave with a clear read on your options.