Military personnel are in much need of financial advice.

Planning for the unexpected is one of the most crucial jobs of a financial advisor-especially, as many advisors are now finding out, when your client is in the military.

Elayne Pisarik of FirsTrust LLC in Daytona Beach, Fla., for example, is one advisor who recently got a crash course in financial planning "combat readiness." Shortly after the war in Iraq began, one of her clients, a 42-year-old pilot in the Air National Guard, was called to active duty. There he has remained for most of the time since the war began.

Because the client lives alone in Atlanta and had to move out quickly, there was little opportunity for Pisarik to get ready for his prolonged absence.

So what followed was months of intermittent e-mails, phone calls and a few meetings squeezed in during the client's brief rotations back to the United States. During this time she was able to set up a power of attorney agreement between the firm and the client, set up automatic bill-paying arrangements and put other things into place to, as she put it, put the client's financial life on "automatic pilot."

One of the difficulties was her inability to get his signature when some of these arrangements were put into place. At one point, she had to plead with a brokerage firm to accept his e-mail in place of a signature on an IRA account he received as a beneficiary in someone's will. If the firm had not finally relented, the client would have missed a minimum distribution and been forced to pay a penalty.

"It's been quite a learning experience for us," Pisarik says. It is, in some ways, basic financial planning-but with extreme emphasis on the planning for the unexpected, she says.

"I think the whole thing pivots around having a set financial plan so you can really think through any unexpected things that might come up," she says.

As a group, military personnel have probably been hit hardest by unexpected events the past year-and-a-half, and are probably among those most in need of a healthy dose of financial advice.

Observers, in fact, say that military people were a ripe market for financial planners even before the war began. They note that the military's enlisted ranks are largely comprised of kids just out of high school who are now getting their first paychecks. Throw in the fact that many come from low-income families and live at bases surrounded by predatory business, and what you have is a population that is in almost dire need of professional financial advice, says Phil Dyer, deputy director for financial planning with the Military Officers Association of America.

"They can get into trouble pretty darn quickly," Dyer says.

The war has added to the financial disarray that can sometimes result from the demands of the military. This is especially true for reservists and members of the National Guard, who are seeing their tours of duty extended. The Army, in fact, recently announced a "stop-loss" policy in which personnel in or going to Iraq or Afghanistan can be forced to remain on active duty with their units after their enlistment period expires.

This situation could grow worse, Dyer says, because employers who have been supplementing their employees' military pay, to keep their incomes level, are in some cases rethinking those policies as tours of duty are extended.

The need for financial safety nets in the military is one of the things that sparked a recent agreement between the MOAA and the Garrett Planning Network, in which participating members of the network are knocking 20% off their hourly fees for military personnel.

It's believed to be the first effort to proactively give military personnel access to fee-only financial planning. The program started at the end of May and will be evaluated in six months, says Dyer.

Dyer hopes the program will be successful, but he's taking a wait-and-see approach. It's no the participation level of planners he's concerned about. It's the enthusiasm of military personnel.

Dyer, who lectures military people on financial planning at bases throughout the country, says military personnel are often too busy to think about planning. Plus, so many of their needs are taken care of while in the service that retirement isn't on the top of their minds, he says.

"Up until a couple years out from retirement, a lot of both the officers and enlisted personnel are not interested in financial planning," he says.

Advisors with experience dealing with military people say that serving this clientele is indeed a specialty, considering the circumstances and culture they're dealing with.

Ben L. Jennings, owner of Navigator Financial Planning in Lakewood, Wash., has extensive experience dealing with military personnel due to the fact that his office is within convenient driving distance of at least six military bases.

The financial planning basics are the same for military people as everyone else, he says, but the circumstances in which such clients live are not. To adequately plan for military personnel, he says, an advisor needs to know military culture, rules and benefits-as well as the lingo.

"The military is just so extensive, and the rules so complex, that it takes a lot more effort to get up to speed," says Jennings, one of the advisors participating in the Garrett Planning Network/MOAA program.

Knowing the differing pay grades and ranks, and the way promotions work in military culture, aren't just for making small talk. In the military, promotions often equate to longevity, and whether or not a military person will be able to hit the 20-year mark in service. Service people who reach that plateau are eligible for lifetime medical benefits and a military pension that typically pays between $30,000 and $50,000 a year.

Military personnel who fall short of the 20-year mark, no matter how close, get no pension. This is why Jennings and other planners generally tell military personnel to plan as if the pension doesn't exist.

"Even folks who want to make the military their career may not necessarily make their 20," says Dyer of the MOAA.

Some of the other terms advisors will confront are Tri Care, the military health benefit plan that can, with 20 years of service, relieve military retirees of a significant burden by giving them a medical benefit package that covers them right up to Medicare. Other terms an advisor needs to be aware of, says Jennings, are acronyms such as TSP, or Thrift Savings Plan, which is the military equivalent to a 401(k) plan, and SBP, or Survivor Benefit Plan, which gives military personnel the option to decide how much of their pension a surviving beneficiary will receive.

But beyond the layers of complexity, advisors say, are the same principles that apply to anyone, such as setting goals, starting early and being disciplined. Dyer, for instance, says the most important message he tries to convey to young service people is to max out their TSP contributions every year. Like the rest of the population, he says, military people aren't putting enough away for retirement.

Robert Gerstemeier, owner of Gerstemeier Financial Group in Naperville, Ill., is a Navy reservist with experience advising clients in the military. He says sudden or extended deployments shouldn't be a problem if the groundwork is done ahead of time.

This includes updating wills and making sure there is adequate life insurance. Through the government military personnel are entitled to a $12,000 death benefit and can get term life insurance with a death benefit up to $250,000.. Married couples need to plan ahead who will control the family accounts when one member of the couple is away for long periods.

Gerstemeier says, for example, that joint custody of accounts can make the process easier, but can also make things more complicated if you have a husband and wife drawing from the same account while they're on opposite sides of the globe.

"It really is not significantly different as far as what you're going to do whether or not you're going to be sent to Iraq," he says. "Many times I sit across the table and tell them, 'I'm preparing you for anything that might happen, whether it be war or getting hit by the bread truck when you cross the street."