Cashing in Leave

I retired under the Federal Employee Retirement system on 31DEC09 and turned 65 on 05JAN10 and began collecting social security. Later I received payment for unused leave of which $25,955 was FICA taxed.
I sent in this info to the local SS office back in April expecting to get a slight increase in my monthly payment. I never received an increase nor a response from the Local SS office.

1. Since the FICA tax was taken out on payment received in 2010, is it considered for SS calculation purposes, earned income in 2010? It is for income tax purposes.

2. For earnings, the SS office advised that the income would not be considered earned in 2010 because the leave was earned in previous years. In other words, I would not be penalized for working in 2010 and collecting SS for cashing in unused leave. If so, my total SS income for 2009 exceeded the 106,800 maximum taxable amount, yet I was FICA taxed on the full amount.

3. I realize that they use the highest 35 years of income for calculating your monthly payment. That means that my 9th year in the Army was used for calculating SS payments. I was an E6 then and annual base pay was only about $7500.

It seems to me that the SS office needs to adjust my pay. Any knowledgeable comments would be appreciated.