I believe your Army Retirement estimate (he is entitled to say US Army Retired) is probably about half your estimate. Reserve and NG retirement pay is based on points, basically one gets a point a day for a max of 365 a year (+1 for Leaps). Normal is 48 Drill points, 14 points Two week annual training, and 15 membership points. Basically 75 points a year. 24 years x 75 points = 1800. However, he earned more for Basic, Italy, and other active duty. To be generous, let’s say he retired with 3000 points.
7500 points about equates to 20 years active service allowing retirement at 50% base pay. So if he had 3000 points that would be 40% of 1/2 his base pay (E8 with 24 years which is about $7000 a month). So half of $7K is $3500, and 40% of that is $1400 a month. Times 12 is about $17,000 a year.
So $15000 a year is probably a very close estimate to what he is actually getting.
Thanks for the update!
I purposefully low-balled the Army retirement pay [all of the retirement stuff, as a matter of fact] so as not to come off as "nutter" about it.
So what you’re saying is that he’s pretty much crowding half a million a year in retirement income...