The United States was facing, until recently, an historic recruitment crisis within the Armed Services. It is likely still facing a similar retention crisis. Much of the twin problems within our fighting force can be chalked up to the social engineering pressed upon the service members by the Pentagon and the White House from the prior Administration. However, a significant portion, particularly in the National Guard and Reserve components, is due to its disproportionate treatment relative to the Active component.
There are
three primary areas where Active and Reservists (collectively referring to the
Reserve component and the various State National Guards) diverge in treatment,
(1) Pay, (2) Benefits, and (3) Duties. From the outset, it is important to acknowledge
that there is a major difference in the Active and Reserve components. The Active-duty
service members are engrossed in the military bureaucracy 365 days a year for
the entire length of their obligation. They get reassigned whenever the
military decrees and have far less control over their living situations or duty
assignments.
However, for
most active-duty service members, they do only work five days a week, during
normal business hours, with clear exceptions, and have thirty days of leave,
federal holidays, and fifteen days of potential holiday leave each year. Reservists
have far fewer obligations then Active Duty, but they do have to manage
disruptions to civilian employment for monthly drills (often exceeding the two
days) and for annual trainings (often exceeding the two weeks). They have
little control over their drill schedule, their annual training, and their deployments,
similarly to active duty, with the exception that it isn’t their sole, or even
primary, employment.
When an active-duty
service member deploys, it is a hardship on the family from a personal
perspective, but it isn’t a departure from their primary employment. The pay structure
for the family doesn’t change (it may actually improve). That is not the case
with the Reservists, who likely, and commonly do, experience a decline in
household income during these obligations.
The
Department of Defense should treat a day in uniform as a day in uniform as it
relates to pay, benefits, and assignments. That is unfortunately not currently
the case.
If an active-duty
service member is employed in uniform for a standard duty day, he or she
receives his or her basic pay, basic allowance for housing (unless quartered),
and basic allowance for sustenance. However, when a Reservist attends drill,
they receive solely payment on MUTAs that are calculated off of basic pay. They
do not receive BAH or BAS in their payment. The idea is that the unit will
provide quartering and sustenance, but in practice this is never the case due
to funding issues. Regardless, the Reservists still has a mortgage/rent that
needs to be paid.
Reservists
either purchase their own lunch/dinner, pay for their own hotel, or return home
to their families at their own homes, much like active-duty service members when
the duty day is over. Incorporating BAH/BAS into the calculation of drill pay
would significantly bolster the pay of Reservists.
Similarly,
to pay, Reservists are treated disproportionately in-kind as it relates to
benefits. The retirement pension is reasonable in how it is calculated.
Reservists do not do as many days in uniform as active-duty personnel, so it is
fully reasonable that they wouldn’t have as many retirement points, and
therefore wouldn’t retain as much of their pension as if they were active duty.
However, active-duty retirees receive their pensions immediately (adjusting for
paperwork) following retirement. Reservists, alternatively, have to survive a
grey period that stretches until age sixty (excluding deployments) before they
receive their benefits.
The reservists
is already being discounted on their pension to reflect their fewer days in
uniform relative to the active component. They still did twenty years of
service to the United States Armed Forces, which carried differing but related emotional,
financial, and personal sacrifice. It is not reasonable to make the service
member wait an arbitrary amount of time to collect their earned benefits.
Likewise, while
the active-duty service member is given access to Tricare Select or Tricare
Prime upon retirement, the reservist has to live on the incredibly expensive
Tricare Retirement Reserve Select throughout the grey period. The active-duty
personnel was reasonably given a better version of Tricare Select during their
active service, while the reservist had to pay a premium for Tricare Reserve
Select. This makes sense, the active personnel is giving more time in uniform
during their service than the Reservists. However, both still provided twenty
years of service to the country and should not have as large a discrepancy in
the retirement years. Tricare Select/Prime is astronomically more affordable than
Tricare Retirement Reserve Select.
During
their service obligations, the active-duty family will have no premiums for
Select, but will have an annual family deductible of $300 and a catastrophic
cap of $1,000. The reservist, enrolled in the Tricare Reserve Select will have
a monthly premium of $274.48, an annual deductible of $348, and a catastrophic
cap of $1,288. This, again, is a reasonable disparity given the differences in
uniform obligation.
However,
during the grey period of retirement, when the active-duty retiree is in
Tricare Select and the reservist is in Tricare Retirement Reserve Select, the
cost differential is astounding. The annual enrollment fee for a retired active-duty
family is $364.92. The reservist family will pay $18,156.48. That is an insane disparity
that doesn’t incentivize reservists wanting to stay for twenty years.
The
reserves are also discounted regarding educational benefits. Reservists and
National Guardsmen are provided tuition assistance, but the benefit is limited
to only tuition, which is a fraction of the actual cost of attending higher
education. They have access to the miniature version of the Montgomery GI bill
which offers $481 per month during academic periods. This is far and away less
than the Post-9/11 GI bill that active-duty service members receive. An active-duty
service member needs to do 90 days of active duty for partial eligibility and
three years for full eligibility. However, they don’t need to deploy to acquire
that benefit. Merely serving in uniform grants them eligibility. However, reservists
have to serve under Title X to have their uniform service count towards
eligibility.
This is a
ridiculous distinction. There is no difference between doing a typical day in
active-duty and doing a drill or annual training day. It should be day-for-day
for eligibility for the GI Bill for reservists. It will obviously take longer
for the reservists to accumulate eligibility than the active component, but
that’s reasonable. But their service in uniform should still be measured as a
day in uniform. This is important because the Post-9/11 GI bill doesn’t just
pay for tuition, but also provides a housing stipend and annual textbook
stipend. Most importantly, it can be transferred to dependents to assist in educational
planning for children.
The
reservist is also disparaged beyond pay and benefits. The active-duty service
member actually gets to do their operational specialty on a daily basis, along
with applicable training. The reservist has at minimum twenty-four days of drill
and fifteen days of annual training to maintain occupational and service
readiness. However, the Department of Defense, and the subordinate service departments,
place so many administrative requirements on the reserve units that virtually
all available times are eaten by power-points trainings and various
forms/reviews that need to be accomplished to ensure bureaucratic readiness.
The reservists don’t actually get the time needed to ensure occupational
proficiency. This leads to unnecessary pre-mobilization time being exhausted to
“catch-up” the reservist personnel for deployments.
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