Thank you so much for such a thoughtful reply! My husband is also a federal employee, and even if we both max out our TSPs, we'll still be in the 25% tax bracket, currently. However, sheltering 25% from tax would definitely be attractive, and we should be able to drop a tax bracket when we reach retirement age. Factoring in pensions, we really don't NEED the amount of TSP we would accumulate if we max out those funds, but the amount of tax we're avoiding now should certainly be factored in.
Since I started this thread I have initiated contributions to Roth. It's great that at least some of the military is providing financial advice. I've been with my agency almost 11 years, and really got nothing other than what I could elect to make TSP contributions, and that there is matching up to 5%. I honestly wasn't really aware of the Roth option, much less what it was for, until now. Kind of embarrassing, but true. Some other employees in my agency have gone a few years before even knowing they could contribute to TSP, so there's a few years lost where all that's gone in is the 1% employee match.