After months of debate on the new plan, Defense Department leaders decided that time off was more in keeping with "the ethos" of military service to country than money — and that rest is more directly connected to the fact that troops are being stressed by repeated deployments, said Michael L. Dominguez, undersecretary for personnel and readiness.

"We weren't trying to find some metaphysical balance between the service you are rendering and buckets full of gold — or any other thing we could do for you," Dominguez said Wednesday.

"This wasn't about that balance. This was about telling men and women of the armed forces that we know when we ask you to do something extraordinary, we're conscious of it, we're aware of it."

In a sometimes contentious Pentagon news conference, Dominguez declined to say whether officials had studied whether troops themselves might prefer money, saying it was a leadership decision.

In what Dominguez acknowledged was a complicated formula to explain, the policy starts with giving one day off for every month troops are recalled early and increases as various thresholds are reached.

Fear of funding problems was not an issue, he said.

"The Congress of the United States has been superb and excellent in terms of if we needed something for the troops, they've given it to us," he said.

Dominguez stressed that the time should not be considered commensurate with troop sacrifices, but rather symbolic.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, soon after taking his job in January, had ordered officials to devise a plan for compensating troops who deploy more often than the standard goal — that is, 12 months on duty, then 24 months off for active duty and 12 months on/five years off for the National Guard and Reserve.

Gates' announcement last week that the 12 months is being extended to 15 months for active duty tours is planned as temporary, until further notice, but the goal is to get back to 12-month tours someday.

Troops are already getting $1,000 extra pay for each tour that lasts beyond the one year.

The new policy relates to those who have their rest time between tours shortened. In the case of active duty, the standard is supposed to be 12 months deployed and 24 months at home station, a 36-month cycle in all. In the case of Guard and Reserves it is supposed to be one-year mobilized and 5 years demobilized. So the new policy is to give active troops one day off for each month they are deployed over 12 of 36 consecutive months. For Guard and Reserve it would be one day for each month deployed over 12 months of a 72-month period.