July 2011 - Navy
By CAPT Ike Puzon, USN (Ret)
The House version of the
National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA)
H.R. 1540 has been recently
finalized, and the Senate is set to
mark-up their version of the NDAA
at this writing. It appears Congress
is on the way to passing an NDAA in
a timely fashion. Some of the manpower
provisions of the House H.R.
1540 are:
-
Navy end-strength goes down by
3,000 to 325,739.
- Navy Reserve end-strength
increases by 729 to 66,200.
- TRICARE Prime fees increase by
13%; $5 per month for family and
$2.50 per month for individual – but
indexing for future fees would use
retiree cost of living allowance for
any increase. Also, the NDAA does
recognize in writing that service
members already pay a high price for
health through service and sacrifice.
- Requires an assessment of health
risks for personnel exposed to openair
burn pits.
- Allows members of the Individual
Ready Reserve who have been called
to active duty for at least one year
since 9/11/01 to purchase premiumbased
TRICARE coverage on the same
basis as members of the retired
reserve.
- Directs a review of the need for
additional behavioral health professionals
and ways to incentivize such
professionals to join the Active and
Reserve forces.
- Directs the Pentagon to develop
a plan to be able to call up a limited
number of Guard and Reserve forces
for missions short of war.
- Requires a variety of initiatives
to enhance suicide prevention efforts
and improve assessment and treatment
of post-traumatic stress and traumatic
brain injury.
- Establishes requirements for the
management and measurement of
dwell time.
- Reforms, consolidates, and simplifies
travel and transportation
authorities.
- Makes mental health assessments
available for members of the
Reserve Components at the location
of their unit during unit training and
assemblies.
- Provides legal council to service
members who are victims of sexual
assault.
- Requires the Secretary of
Defense to establish a unified medical
command.
- See our Web site for a complete
listing of provisions, www.ausn.org or
http://armedservices.house.gov/.
Regarding military health care,
I recently spent nine days at Walter
Reed Army Medical Center and met
many wounded warriors and their
families. It is something you should
do in your hometown or VA facility to
understand the issues and where our
priorities are. Few of us really know
what it is like to have a wounded family
member come back from a combat
zone. And, few of us worry about
health care for veterans until it
happens to us!
I am convinced we have the best
medical care in the world in the US
military system. I am also convinced
there is no reason we should not do
more for our wounded, their families,
and our survivors. We actually need
more of us to care and get involved
with the wounded members and their
families.
While our wounded heal, and
service members still fight the enemy,
it is amazing that our leaders in the
military and in the Executive Branch
are starting to preach a mantra of the
military health care and pay are
costing too much, “eating the military
budget alive.” I am not sure how a
leader can say this about care for
the military, combat veterans, their
families and survivors – Active or
Reserve. For some time, we have
known that a professional non-draft
force would cost the Nation. This
shows how terrible we are in the
US at costing and predicting in the
military.
In 1972, we knew that cost would
rise without a draft. We also knew
we would fight wars. In national
security, we are terrible at understanding
unintended consequences.
We are a great nation with the best
military in the world; but we are
terrible at predicting the future
because of the makeup of our military
system and the way we rotate our
leaders.
We have had more conflicts
(operations other than war) and
wars in the last 20 years than we
did in the previous 75 years. To be
a world leader and to be America
requires our military to be capable,
trained, agile and fully manned at all
times. To lead, if that is what we
want as a nation, we have to have a
first-rate, well-trained, and wellcared-
for military and their support
groups.
We have been fighting two wars
simultaneously since 2001. Civilian
US health care has risen. The
wounded have come home. Why
wouldn’t there be an increase in
military health care cost? Of course,
many say, we didn’t need to fight
in Iraq or Afghanistan. Those are
blinded people. Where would be in the
world with terrorism unchallenged by
the United States Military. The US
military is the only organization that
can defeat the terrorists and the only
military that could have found
Saddam Husain and Osama Bin
Laden and brought them to justice.
Yet, few, if any, in the military are
complaining about anything. The
only people complaining are inside the
beltway in Washington, DC, generally.
Service members and veterans did
not create a budget deficit – Congress
and the Executive Branch did.
A related leadership issue
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
has long avoided using reductions in
military pay and active duty benefits
to reduce costs. However, pressure
from the Administration to make
$400B in cuts may have forced a
change. In the past, Sec. Gates has
sought to squeeze some excess costs
from TRICARE by asking to increase
annual premiums and fees for military
retirees. During wartime, recently,
Secretary Gates has put the possibility
of cuts in military pay and benefits
on the table.
Sec. Gates launched a comprehensive
review of DoD’s future needs to
identify specific recommendations.
(Remember how good we are at
predicting.) Among the specifics he
cited were:
-
Lowering military compensation
in light of strong recruiting and
retention numbers.
- Eliminating the “one-size-fits-all”
military retirement system in favor of
a tiered and targeted retirement system
that weights compensation towards
the most in-demand specialties.
- Increasing health care costsharing
for working-age retirees.
These recommendations and
several similar ones remind us of old
arguments that led to shortsighted
changes of the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s
that ultimately caused significant
retention and readiness problems,
and a hollow force. And, it took
monumental efforts to reverse a
hollow force. Our enemies took
advantage of a hollow force. Any
cut in military personnel system
compensation would blatantly take
money from people who serve a
career to pay people who leave early,
creating a retention and readiness
time bomb.
In related action, the Senate last
Wednesday unanimously rejected
97 to 0 the President’s fiscal year
2012 budget. Senators also rejected
40 to 57 the House-passed budget
sponsored by Rep. Paul Ryan
(R-WI), which leaves the chamber
without a budget four months before
1 October start of fiscal year 2012.
Once again, it’s a slow start in the
Senate even though the House is
moving forward.
A solution
Our DoD leaders and Congress
squabble over pay for the military
and their earned benefits and people
are still being killed in war and being
wounded. Our service members and
wounded warriors need more and
need our support. Visit a military
treatment facility or VA hospital.
Those there have paid their dues in
war and in peace. Veterans have
earned their benefits. Before our
military pay system or benefits are
cut, we should subject all of the
Executive Branch and the Congress
to pay cuts and health care changes.
I suggest, we cut the pay and compensation
for senior executives at
DoD and in the Executive Branch
first. There are cuts to be taken, but
not to our military in these areas for
service members and veterans. Yet,
Congress moves forward on these
issues because we allow them to take
action. You can make a difference.
Take action at www.ausn.org.