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Policy on extra leave days called unfair to reserves

Reserve component leaders are up in arms about a recent Pentagon policy change that they say makes it difficult, if not impossible, for some reservists to use extra leave days they are awarded for being mobilized beyond rotation policy goals.

Under the April 18 policy, one day of “administrative absence” is awarded for each month beyond 12 that active-duty troops are deployed in any 36-month period, and for each month beyond 12 cumulative months that reservists are mobilized in any 72-month period.

As deployments and mobilizations increase, so do days of administrative absence awarded, up to four days when active-duty troops are deployed for more than 24 consecutive months in a 36-month period and when reservists are mobilized for more than 24 cumulative months in a 72-month period.

They can use the leave in place of their regular leave, which under certain conditions can be sold back to the government — but reservists must be on active duty on the days they take such leave.

In the April 18 announcement of the new policy, David S.C. Chu, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said reservists “may be extended” on active duty under their mobilization orders so they can take any days of administrative absence earned under the new policy “once they return home.”

Lack of flexibility cited

But the vagueness and lack of flexibility in that statement irk reserve officials.

At a recent hearing, Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn, director of the Army National Guard, told Congress that the policy would work fine for active-duty troops.

Reservists, he said, are another story. It’s unfair to tell reservists, “We’re going to give you administrative leave, but oh, by the way, your order’s run out.”

For reservists who can’t — or don’t want to — take the leave immediately upon returning from deployment, he said, “you’d have to cut new orders” just to allow them to burn the administrative leave.

“Then it’s going to take a battalion’s worth of folks running around trying to figure all this out,” he said.

In a May 8 letter to the National Guard Association of the United States, Chu sought to ease concerns by pointing out that reservists would not be required to perform military duty while using the administrative leave, and would receive the added benefits of receiving active-duty pay, earning retirement points and receiving health care benefits.

But that still raises concerns about ensuring that the leave policy is flexible enough to meet reservists’ needs.

The Adjutants General Association thinks the whole idea of awarding administrative leave is a flawed approach.

“The nation’s adjutants general universally reject this policy,” Maj. Gen. Roger Lempke, the group’s president, wrote May 10 to Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “It does not, in amount or timeliness, compensate our citizen-soldiers or their families for the disruption caused by violating DoD rotation policy goals.”

Awarding days off is simply not sufficient, he said. Compensation for frequent or lengthy mobilizations by Guard and reserve members should be significant enough to serve as “a disincentive to violating rotation policies,” he wrote, adding that it also must be flexible and provide “real relief” to service members and families during times of deployment.

“Only monetary compensation meets those objectives.”