Troops To Get Comp Time For Longer Deployment

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Los Angeles Times
April 19, 2007
Pentagon insists days off rather than pay are in keeping with a tradition of service and not due to budget problems.
By Reuters
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said Wednesday that it would give U.S. troops time off rather than cash bonuses when their combat missions are extended, but insisted the decision was not linked to budget woes.
"The budgets and constraints on the budgets were not binding or determinative in this," said Michael L. Dominguez, the Defense Department's principal deputy undersecretary for personnel. "We weren't concerned about the budget."
He said time off was more consistent with a culture of service.
"We weren't trying to find some metaphysical balance between the service you are rendering and buckets full of gold," he said when pressed by reporters on why additional pay was not offered.
"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," Dominguez said.
Long and repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan have placed a monetary and staffing strain on the U.S. military, particularly the Army and Marine Corps.
The Bush administration has asked Congress for additional war funds for immediate use, but that measure has been tied up in debate over a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has extended the tours of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan from a year to 15 months.
Under the new Pentagon policy, active-duty troops will get one day off for every month their deployment extends beyond 12 months in a three-year period. If deployment extends to more than 18 months out of 36, two days per month will be granted.
 
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