GubMints

COMNAVRESFORCOM Kicks Navy IRR Reservists to the Curb

Navy IRR Reservists- You Are Here!

I just received this little gem in my inbox:

SUBJ: CAC Access for NKO and BUPERS

All personnel in the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) – Active Status Pool (ASP) will be impacted by the recent implementation of Department of Defense (DoD) mandated cyber security measures. A growing number of DoD sites including Navy Knowledge Online are now only accessible via a Common Access Card (CAC). As of 21 September, this will also include BUPERS Online. The Department of the Navy (DoN) is currently awaiting a DoD engineered solution that will support existing IRR participation requirements. Once a permanent solution has been established, it will be posted at http://www.public.navy.mil/BUPERS-NPC/CAREER/RESERVEPERSONNELMGMT/IRR. Your patience is requested in the interim.

Effective immediately, PERS-93 will begin forwarding paper versions of the IRR Annual Screening questionnaire via the United States Postal Service to all personnel who are within 60 days of their anniversary date. Complete and return the questionnaire using the enclosed self-addressed postage paid envelope. Returned questionnaire data will be manually entered into the Inactive Manpower and Personnel Management Information System (IMAPMIS) using the date of receipt as the effective date of compliance. Questions regarding the IRR Annual Screening may be directed to PERS-93, IRR Force Management at 1-800-535-2699.

For information regarding Annual Retirement Point Record/Annual Statement of Service History, please contact the Customer Service Center at 1-866-U-ASK-NPC.

For Service members applying for the Fall Full-Time Support Lateral Transfer/Re-designation Board in accordance with NAVADMIN 201/13, contact PSC Audrey Dixon at audrey.dixon(at)navy.mil to discuss manual submission procedures.

This email was sent to xxxxx@yahoo.com using GovDelivery, on behalf of: Commander, Navy Reserve Forces Command · 1915 Forrestal Dr · Norfolk, VA 23551 · 1-866-830-6466

Translation- What COMNAVRESFORCOM really means is:

“While I demand the right to call you on the phone tonight and ship your Future Carcass to U-Pick-A-Stan tomorrow, The Navy can’t be  bothered with the expense or the time of issuing CAC Cards to Individual Ready Reservists.  I also would rather kick you to the curb than stand my ground against iron-fisted DoD Information Assurance regulations.”

So IRR Reservists (like yours truly) are shut down where it comes to:

  • Earning Correspondence Points on NKO (Navy Knowledge Online)
  • Auditing completion of service and points on BUPERS Online
  • Electronically filling out the Annual IRR Questionairre (GubMints now recommends sending by Certified Mail)
And Please, don’t give me the argument that our adversaries are going to find out our trade secrets and war plans by hacking in to NKO- If the information is that vital to national security, it should be posted on the SIPRNET.
If our adversaries really want to wreak havoc on our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines, NKO is the last place to go- They’ll go after the websites of Navy Federal, Pentagon Federal, and USAA first and start causing true pain by attacking military checkbooks (I’m not the first one to disclose this revelation- USAA has already made it public that its number one source of web traffic is Mainland China- Where USAA has NO members).

Since COMNAVRESFORCOM and his staff did not suggest a positive solution for Navy IRR Reservists, I’m providing work-arounds here:

  • Fellow IRR reservists can continue to earn Correspondence Points on DAU (DAU has not stooped to Mandatory CAC access yet).   GubMints highly recommends the courses that start with ‘CLE’ and ‘CLM’.
  • Request Hard Copies of your ARPR and ASOSH: ‘Push back’ by calling 1-800-U-Ask-NPC to demand a hard copy of your Annual Retirement Point Record (ARPR) and Annual Statement of Service History (ASOSH).
… If you have any other recommendations for IRR reservists, post them in the comments below or email them to me.  I’ll post them for public consumption here.

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Veterans

Comments (8)

  1. Oboy, I knew there was a reason that I saved our 10-year-old CAC reader.

    All the services’ active-duty and Reserve retirement calculators started disappearing behind logins a couple years ago. The unofficial reason is that it’s easier to read the data right off the CAC instead of letting people enter their own High Three data or play “What if?” with different numbers.

    Reply

  3. I have always tried to acquire IRR points through NETC but I’m interested in exploring some of these other sites. I have a few questions and I’d appreciate your help:
    1) For DAU – since I don’t have a CAC and I log on as “contractor/industry” and then I go to set up an account, does it matter that I don’t have a job or supervisor that I would allow them to contact? Also, amongst the courses listed, I didn’t see any starting with ‘CLE’ and ‘CLM’ — can you be more specific?

    2) On the http://www.pubic.navy.mil – welcome to the IRR website, they write that:
    Additional courses, not requiring a CAC, can be found at:
    Naval Dental School, Bethesda, MD: http://www.bethesda.med.navy.mil

    Naval War College, Newport, RI: http://www.nwc.navy.mil

    Naval Postgraduate School: http://www.nps.edu/

    Do you know where on these website I would begin to actually take a course that would qualify for points?

    Many thanks!

    Reply

    1. Melissa –

      Thanks for reading!

      I’ve had no luck (have not seriously attempted) to go to any non-CAC sites other than DAU.

      DAU has been pretty easy – You can use the email of just about anyone as someone to vouch for you- In My case, I don’t think they did any research/follow-up.

      The CLE/CLM courses are in the list of courses on the DAU Training Page: http://icatalog.dau.mil/onlinecatalog/tabnavcl.aspx

      Reply

  5. So NETC courses are definitely out? I called and was told by an IRR Counselor to look at the list of approved courses. I don’t know why they can’t just come out and say (in writing) that NETC courses are no longer approved for retirement points. I don’t trust that I’m getting good information from the person on the phone- I always like to have it in writing!

    Reply

  6. I received an email from the IRR counselor telling me that FEMA and JKO courses are the only ones available to me since I do not have a CAC card. Does anybody have any other insight to earn points in IRR?

    Reply

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