European and Pacific Stars & Stripes

Guard, Reserve troops' pay issues are task force's focus — and challenge


By Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes"

ARLINGTON, Va. — Guard and Reserve troops’ pay issues will be a primary focus as well as a daunting challenge for a new task force reviewing military pay issues, its members said Tuesday.

Reserve components are deployed almost as frequently as their active-duty counterparts in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet “the pay structures are so different between the active and the reserve,” said retired Navy Adm. Donald Pilling, chairman of the new defense advisory committee on military compensation.

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Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld chartered the committee in early spring, directing its members to come up with recommendations for improving the Pentagon’s military compensation system.

The committee, which met publicly for the first time May 11, will issue recommendations to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by late September, and a final report due in April 2006.

The compensation committee is focusing on five categories: special and incentive pays; retirement pay, including pensions and medical benefits; Guard and Reserve compensation; medical benefits for serving forces; and family issues, such as housing and spouse employment opportunities.

In addition to Guard and Reserve pay issues, medical benefits will also be difficult to tackle, Pilling said.

“My personal option is that we won’t do much on medical care because it’s so complex,” Piling said. “But we have to address it, [because future costs] are so huge.”

Well, it's a start, but we need to fix the medical care! Reserves, National Guard troups need equal "eveything" to our Regular troups!

Semper Fi