Military Time buy back for GS retirement/using IRA?

[Dave]

What Jerry said. Dependent upon your budget and the length of time you're looking at, the payback can be as little as $25/pay period, iirc.

This is what I did when I started with DOI, $25 per pay period. I only had 7 years to payback though.

The laws governing withdrawals from IRA's can get pretty harsh. You may want to roll over to your TSP and after that take a TSP loan at the about 1% interest. That way as long as your payments stay current you won't have a tax hit.