MILITARY UPDATE
Changes afoot in reserve pay
Military Update focuses on issues affecting pay, benefits and lifestyle of active and retired servicepeople. Its author, Tom Philpott, is a Virginia-based syndicated columnist and freelance writer. He has covered military issues for almost 25 years, including six years as editor of Navy Times. For 17 years he worked as a writer and senior editor for Army Times Publishing Co. Philpott, 50, enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1973 and served as an information officer from 1974-77.
By Tom Philpott
With 8,500 more reservists ordered to active duty last week, mobilization for the war on terrorism and on Iraq climbed to 177,000 reservists and National Guardsmen.
During the Cold War, a reserve call-up was often symbolic. Today, America can't go to war or adequately defend its homeland without reserves in a prominent role.
That fact, more obvious since Sept. 11, 2001, has Congress, the Bush administration, Reserve force leaders and service associations looking for ways to ease the operational strain, reduce administrative hassles and ensure adequate compensation for reserve components.
One initiative near to becoming law would restore tax breaks on unreimbursed travel expenses for drilling reservists. Defense officials, meanwhile, are studying ways to improve family medical coverage and resurrect mobilization insurance for reserve income protection.
By September, Congress should have two new government reports on the adequacy of reserve compensation that could generate important initiatives in 2004.
Other changes are ahead. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is worried that too many critical missions reside exclusively in the Reserves, and has ordered a look at rebalancing missions and structure.
Finally, defense officials have a study from The Wexford Group International of Vienna, Va., on streamlining 29 Reserve-duty status categories down to no more than nine. That would reduce sharply the paperwork needed to move reservists on and off active duty by shifting reserves to the same pay and benefits system used by active forces.
Under the plan, not yet embraced by defense officials, any reservist drill or training day would count as active duty, earning a full day's basic pay plus allowances, instead of the current two. Reservists would get a retainer pay to make up the difference. The goal would be to reduce paperwork for active-duty commands that rely increasingly on reserves, according to a briefing for the Reserve Forces Policy Board.
Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.) led a congressional delegation to Europe in January, where it met with more than 200 reserve personnel to discuss mobilization, voluntary recall and the effects on families and civilian jobs.
In a report, the delegation noted that reserve support to the U.S. European Command alone was equal to 7,000 active-duty troops handling crucial missions such as intelligence, force protection and port security, and that reliance was only expected to grow. The delegation predicted more involuntary, short-notice mobilizations that would lower Reserve unit retention over time, among other problems. It concluded that much of the strain on reserves results from an active-duty draw down since 1991 that was just too steep.
The Reserve role will expand even more in the aftermath of any war with Iraq, said Stephen Anderson, legislative counsel for the Reserve Officer Association.
Questions, comments and suggestions are welcome. Write to Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA 20120-1111, or send e-mail to: milupdate@aol.com.
