Vanity: Hazardous Duty Pay questions

[RC30]

My wife's sister was speaking with her this morning and she mentioned that the military has reduced or eliminated my brother in law's hazardous duty pay. She said it was around $300.00/mo reduction. This started a couple of weeks ago.

She said the military is saying that since the war is tecnically over that Hazardous Duty Pay will no longer be provided.

Can anyone tell me if this is true and give me more specifics. My Brother in law is in the RI Army National Guard. I tried to find information about it on the web, but the information that I can find is either confusing or/and not current.

Also am I right in using the term Hazardous Duty Pay. Is that a general term? I saw terms such as Imminent Danger Pay, Hardship Pay etc.

Thanks in advance FReepers for being the best source of information on the web.

[Pukin Dog]

Your sister-in-law is incorrect.

Back in April, Congress inacted a number of TEMPORARY increses in the amounts of Hazardous Duty, Imminent Danger, Family Separation, Hardship, and other payments.

These payments have not be stopped, they are returning to their basic rates after the Congressional increases expired. Those payments were bumped from an average maximum of $150 per month to $250, and many soldiers qualified for more than one type of benefit.

Congress chose not to make the increases permanent, so many soldiers are seeing a drop in their pay.

[meenie]

The hazardous duty pay is supposed to be for combat. As combat is not happening now, the pay has been suspended. The war ended when the commander-in-chief declared victory.

[CheneyChick]

The war ended when the commander-in-chief declared victory.

And when, praytell, did he do that?

[verity]

Bwahahaha!

[mrsmith]

The pay was to be reinstated for Iraq and Afghanistan in the Defense Authorization.
But that hasn't passed yet.

It might have been put into the Iraq and Afghanistan Emergency Authorization passed yesterday.

No doubt it will be retroactive.

[mystery-ak]

RC...do you still have the link from the DOD explaining this...I deleted mine.

[Pukin Dog]

That is not true, there are many non-combat forms of hazardous duty pay. One example would be the extra pay that sailors who work on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. A VERY hazardous environment, where there are 50 ways to die before lunch if one is not careful.

And what about the President declaring victory? Go get more coffee, and come back with facts, okay?

[Pukin Dog]

Defense Department officials have characterized as "absurd" the notion that they support a pay reduction Oct. 1 for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The notion arose, however, within the department itself.

Despite a hurried press conference Aug. 14 to ease the impact on troop morale, Defense officials still couldn’t explain in detail how U.S. occupation forces would avoid a pay cut if Congress follows the Bush administration’s own advice and allows up to $225 a month in special pay raises to expire.

In July, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and staff corresponded with the chairmen of the armed services committees to give guidance to House-Senate conferees on resolving differences in separate versions of the 2004 defense bills. Among items Rumsfeld and staff opposed were ``unrequested’’ increases in pays and allowances including a $150-a-month increase in Family Separation Allowance (FSA) and a $75-a-month boost in Imminent Danger Pay (IDP).

Congress enacted both raises last April, and made them retroactive to October 2002, as a ``thank you’’ to deployed service members, particularly those fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The special pay increases, however, are set to expire Sept. 30 unless Congress votes to extend them.

The Senate version of the defense bill would make the FSA and IDP increases permanent. The House would keep them only until Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, in Afghanistan, ended.

Defense officials had advised against either alternative but, until the recent firestorm, proposed no substitute. Since last spring Defense officials argued against the special pay increases, saying they were inefficient as an award for troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan because the extra money goes to tens of thousands of service members deployed elsewhere.

Family Separation Allowance, which Congress raised from $100 a month to $250, is paid to any service member forced to live away from family for more than 30 days. Before the Iraq war, roughly 200,000 members drew FSA including married sailors and Marines on routine sea deployments.

Imminent Danger Pay, which jumped from $150 a month to $225, is paid to anyone serving in one of scores of designated danger areas around the world. At least 250,000 drew danger pay before the Iraq war.

David Chu, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said that last April’s increases were like ``using a sledgehammer to hit a small nail.’’

In early August, Army Times focused anew on DoD’s opposition to extending the special pay increases beyond Sept. 30. A headline said the department wanted to ``slash’’ danger and separation pay. This sparked other news articles, along with scathing editorials and feigned outrage by Democrats including nine declared presidential candidates for 2004.

On Aug. 14, Chu and Larry Di Rita, the department’s acting spokesman, held a news conference to try to defuse the issue. Di Rita called reports that the administration supported pay cuts for those in Iraq and Afghanistan not just wrong but ``absurd.’’

Chu said he was ``startled’’ by the uproar and said the administration was committed to protecting pay levels for troops facing combat. By the time their press conference ended, however, the pair still left unanswered how DoD could protect pay levels for troops in two countries while urging Congress to allow the special pay increases to expire.

``There is an open issue about how we're going to do that,’’ Chu said. But DoD ``has a variety of pay and allowance powers’’ to make it happen. He referred to a possible increase in hazardous duty pay, which presumably would require legislation. He also referred to a new assignment incentive pay. But DoD hadn’t proposed funding either initiative earlier.

No pay experts were made available to explain the new authorities. Chu suggested there was no need to shape a specific proposal to protect the pay of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan until Congress decides whether to extend the April increases. That strategy, however, left lawmakers with no alternative to consider in their conference next month on the defense bill.

Regardless of what Congress or the Bush administration intends to occur Oct. 1, the special pay hikes of April could disappear from paychecks for at least a month, even for troops in Iraq. That’s because Congress left town in August with increases in FSA and IDP still set to expire Sept. 30. Because military finance centers must adhere to the law as written when their deadlines arrive to set the next month’s pay, October checks could reflect a temporary return to pre-Iraq pay levels, one official explained.

If so, higher payments could be restored again in November and made retroactive to Oct. 1.

[RC30]

Thanks for the information everyone, btw I forgot to mention my B.I.L is serving in Iraq, I believe he is still somwhere near the airport.

[RC30]

Does anybody know if Hazardous Duty Pay is the same as Immininent Danger Pay, or are they two different entities? Are the soldiers in Iraq receiving Hazardous Duty Pay? Or does it depend on what you are doing in Iraq?

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

DoD Statement on Family Separation Allowance and Imminent Danger Pay ~ DoD  | 8/14/03

[mrsmith]

The pay in dispute is an increase in "Immininent Danger Pay" and "Family Separation Pay" which expired Sept 30.

Everybody promised that the increase would be continued for Iraq and Afghanistan duty. I believe it is in the $87 billion Iraq Emergency bill just passed but couldn't find the final language to that bill.

BTW There was a Defense Authorization bill passed in Sept. It didn't have many specifics in it though that I could see.

[meenie]

I prefer to not mention the extremely hazardous duties I have preformed without the pay.

[marmadukenaked]

Can someone please explain this statement to me? "David Chu, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said that last April’s increases were like ``using a sledgehammer to hit a small nail.’’ And how was the sister-in-law incorrect? Seems to me that you both agree that there has been a reduction in pay....sorry just trying to understand this issue.