Hello Colleen,
Thanks for stopping by planDisney with your question. It sounds like you are eager to get the ball rolling on your magical vacation!
While I know that it feels like it's taking forever for military discounts to be announced, in past years
military salute tickets have been released in the fall. So, yes you'll have to wait, but I don't think you'll have to worry about
theme park reservations being fully booked at that time. While reservations do tend to fill up, aside from traditionally busy days like Fourth of July or Christmas, that usually only happens a couple of weeks in advance. For example, even though summer is quite busy in Walt Disney World, when I look at the
park availability for July every day except for 2 are still completely available, and the 2 dates with limited availability only show one park booked for each day. Even if you aren't able to purchase your tickets until November you should still be able to get the park reservations that you want.
In the meantime, you can start planning your dream itinerary. I actually like to make my park reservations AFTER I've made my
dining reservations. That way I have more flexibility when it comes to getting reservations at popular restaurants inside the parks like
Space 220 Restaurant in EPCOT or
Be Our Guest Restaurant in Magic Kingdom.
I know this wasn't the exact news you were looking for, but hopefully it helped. Enjoy planning your magical vacation!
Diane