(By William H. McMichael)
Active and reserve service members will earn administrative leave for war-related deployments or mobilizations that break the Pentagon's stated policy goals for time spent at and away from home, defense officials announced Wednesday.
Under the new program, active troops will receive one day of administrative leave for each month they are deployed for more than 12 months — either cumulatively or consecutively — during any 36-month period. For reservists, the administrative leave kicks in when they are mobilized for more than 12 cumulative or consecutive months in any 72-month period.
Two days of additional administrative leave will be granted when deployments exceed 18 months out of a 36-month period for active-duty troops, and 18 months out of 72 months for mobilized reservists. And four days will be granted when active troops are deployed more than 24 out of 36 months and reservists are mobilized more than 24 months out of 72 months.
An April 18 memo to the service secretaries from David S.C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, states that creditable deployments under the new policy for active-duty troops include those in Iraq or Afghanistan, or with theater units in nearby areas supporting forces in Iraq or Afghanistan. For reservists, creditable mobilizations are essentially any call-ups for federal service.
According to Chu's memo, the program applies to deployments and mobilizations under way on, or commencing after, Jan. 19, 2007, the date of Defense Secretary Robert Gates' policy memo that laid out so-called “dwell time” ratios for active and reserve troops and directed the establishment of the new compensation program.
The memo states that active troops can compute creditable time for the new administrative leave as far back as Jan. 19, 2004, or the date that is 36 months prior to the member's deployment, whichever date is more recent. For reservists, creditable time includes periods of mobilization going back as far as Oct. 7, 2001 — the start of the war in Afghanistan — or the date that is 72 months prior to the mobilization, whichever date is more recent.
Chu said the service secretaries “may include other deployments or mobilizations” beyond those outlined in his memo if they choose to expand on the basic policy. He told the service secretaries to report back to him no later than April 30 with their plans for implementing the policy.
The new leave — officially called “Post-Deployment/Mobilization Respite Absence” — would come on top of the regular leave accrued by service members at a rate of 2½ days per month.
Here's an example of how it would work: An active-duty service member who deployed for 12 months on, say, Feb. 1, 2007, and then re-deployed for 15 months on Nov. 1, 2008, ultimately would earn 33 days of administrative leave — one day per month for the first five months of the second deployment; two days per month for each of the next six months of the second deployment; and four days per month for the final four months of the second deployment.
At a hastily arranged news conference Wednesday, Michael Dominguez, principal undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said the administrative leave program is “a recognition device for telling people, ‘Look, we know we're asking you to do something extraordinary … [but] if we use you hard, we're going to give you some time off.' ”
Dominguez called it “a signal” to service members that when the military asks them to go “beyond the boundaries … [that] we're thinking about you ... and we acknowledge your service.”
The new program would not affect the current policy of paying service members $1,000 for each month they are involuntarily extended beyond 12 consecutive months in the war zones — $200 per month in additional hardship duty pay and $800 per month in Assignment Incentive Pay. AIP is also paid to service members in certain critical skills who voluntarily agree to extend their tours in the war zones, ranging from $300 per month to $1,000 per month, depending on their skill and the length of the extension.
Details of the new compensation concept were expected to be released in early February, shortly after Gates' initial Jan. 19 announcement. The long delay was due to what sources earlier said was much wrangling over how to implement the policy.
“We had a healthy, rousing discussion of this policy,” Dominguez said, declining to elaborate. But he said Gates and military personnel officials received input from service leaders, top enlisted advisers and the Joints Chiefs.
The Joint Chiefs, Dominguez said, “are extraordinarily comfortable” with the new policy.
Troops will be able to use the administrative leave in place of their regular leave, which they are allowed to sell back to the government under certain conditions.
Under current military compensation policy, troops can be paid a lump sum for up to 60 days of unused accrued leave when they are honorably discharged, retired or released from active duty, or when they reenlist. The payment, which is taxable, is based on a member's rate of basic pay at the time. Service members cannot sell back more than 60 days of unused leave over the course of a military career.
Troops normally are not allowed to carry more than 60 days of accrued leave from one fiscal year to the next. There is an exception for those who serve at least 120 consecutive days in areas that qualify them for hostile fire or imminent danger pay, which includes the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones; those personnel can carry over up to 120 days of regular leave at the end of the fiscal year.