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Panel OKs stop-loss stipend

A $487 billion defense funding bill approved July 31 by a key House subcommittee includes a long-sought reward for more than 160,000 people — more than 120,000 of them soldiers — whose military service was involuntarily extended because of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Along with a 3.9 percent military raise on Jan. 1, a $1.4 million increase to improve barracks and hospitals and a $1 billion boost for training, the House Appropriations defense subcommittee has approved a $500 monthly payment for soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines whose separations or retirements were delayed by stop-loss orders since October 2001.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the subcommittee chairman who has been pushing to reduce the length and frequency of deployments to Iraq, convinced his colleagues to put the stop-loss payment into the bill along with a pay raise that is larger than the 3.5 percent increase requested by the Bush administration.

Murtha said taking care of troops and their families was the top priority in the appropriations bill. “Quality personnel are our military’s backbone,” he said.

If the stop-loss benefit becomes law — and sponsors believe its approval by the panel is a major step in the process — the $500 monthly payments would retroactively cover anyone whose service was extended by as little as one day since the start of the war in Afghanistan in late 2001.

According to details provided by subcommittee staff, retroactive payments would go to 120,267 soldiers, 39,199 airmen, 3,900 Marines and fewer than 1,000 sailors. Most are believed to be no longer in the military and would have to be tracked down to receive the payments.

Of the more than 120,000 soldiers affected by stop-loss, 61,500 were in the active Army, 43,600 were in the Army National Guard, and 15,200 were in the Army Reserve. Almost all, or 97 percent, of soldiers who have come under stop-loss orders were E-5 and below, Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb said.

Aides say stop-loss orders have lasted seven months on average, which would equal average payments of $3,500 per person.

The longest time a soldier has been under stop-loss orders is 21 months, but the number of soldiers stop-lossed for that long is small, Edgecomb said.

The 21 months includes 15 months deployed and the 90 days before and after the deployment, she said.

While not spelled out in the legislation, the stop-loss payment would be tax-free for each month of payment in which a person was in a combat zone but would be taxable for any month he served under stop-loss orders outside a combat zone. Amended tax returns would have to be filed by those receiving the payments.

Army officials said they anticipate retroactive payments would be made as a lump sum. If a soldier who is stop-lossed decides to re-enlist, his stop-loss payments would likely just stop, and he would not have to pay back any stop-loss money already received.

While unlikely, it’s possible for soldiers to be stop-lossed more than once, Edgecomb said.

For example, a soldier who chooses to re-enlist at the end of a period of stop-loss could be stop-lossed again depending on the timing of his next re-enlistment, she said.

Rep. Betty Sutton, D-Ohio, one of the chief backers of the stop-loss allowance, said she thinks it is an important morale booster.

She said the payments will “help ease the financial burden” that wartime deployments have placed on troops and families.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who started the congressional effort for stop-loss payments, said extended service is a “terrific sacrifice” by service members and their families.

“We think there ought to be some recognition for that extended service,” he said.

Sutton said she anticipates some opposition to the proposal but believes Congress will adopt the stop-loss payment in the end.

“I have to believe, regardless of party, that folks want to see troops financially compensated when asked to make exceptional sacrifice,” she said.

Why it’s used, when it will stop

Stop-loss, used by the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps in the early days of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and by the Army almost continuously in recent years, has been called a “backdoor draft” by detractors who view it as a blatant indication that there are not enough people in uniform to carry out current operations.

“Stop-loss is used to help maintain cohesion in our deployed formations,” Edgecomb said. “Its use is necessary based on the high operational demand for deployed units.”

With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, most Army brigade combat teams receive 12 to 15 months of time at home, or dwell time.

“As dwell time increases, due to the addition of more brigade combat teams to the force and/or reduction in the operational tempo, we anticipate that the Army can reduce and eventually eliminate the use of stop-loss,” Edgecomb said.

The Army is building and transforming to a total of 48 brigade combat teams, five more than it has now.

Staff Sgt. Jose Villa, 25, is preparing for his third deployment to Iraq. The section leader with 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, 172nd Infantry Brigade, in Grafenwoehr, Germany, was supposed to leave the Army in February 2009. Instead, he will deploy at the end of the year with his fellow soldiers.

He anticipates he will be under stop-loss orders for about 12 months.

“The way I look at it, they’re pretty much screwing us over because we can’t go home, but if they’re giving us an extra chunk of change, at least we’re getting something out of it,” he said.

Villa added that he’s skeptical the stop-loss payments will become reality.

“I guess it could help with morale because it is a good lump of change, [but] until I actually see it, then I’ll believe it,” he said.

Since joining the Army in January 2002, Villa has deployed once to Kosovo and twice to Iraq. His last Iraq tour, from August 2006 to October 2007 in northeast Baghdad, was deadly, and his platoon lost nine soldiers.

“I see the purpose for [stop-loss], but you’ve got guys who have been on so many deployments already,” he said. “Somebody who’s been put through the stuff we’ve been through, let them go [from the Army].”

Spc. Nicholas Golden, 21, also assigned to 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, will return to Iraq at the end of this year with Villa. This will be his second Iraq tour, even though he was supposed to leave the Army in December.

He estimates he will fall under stop-loss orders for at least 15 months.

“At first it was kind of heart-breaking because we had a rough deployment last time and I was really excited to get out, and now I have to deal with that again,” he said. “To find out we’re going back kind of crushed me, but as time went on, you kind of get used to it and accept that there’s nothing you can really do about it.”

The $500 monthly payments will be nice, Golden said.

“Honestly, I’d rather get out than go back, but ... it makes it a little easier, I guess, to know you’re getting a little extra money for going back,” he said.

He said he plans to save the extra money so that he can use it when he’s allowed to leave the Army.

“I think a big part of it was how bad the last deployment was,” he said about his reluctance to return to Iraq. “We got hit so hard that most people don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

Only a first step

Frank Yoakum, of the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States, said the House subcommittee’s decision “is an excellent sign,” but cautioned this was just the first step in a long legislative process.

Yoakum said he expects the House Appropriations Committee to easily approve the stop-loss payment when it takes up the bill after the summer congressional recess, and he also expects the Senate will include the payment in its version of the bill.

He said the key decision point will come when House and Senate negotiators meet to write a final compromise bill.

Negotiations happen behind closed doors, making it easier for lawmakers to remove something from consideration without having to publicly account for their decision, he said.

Yoakum’s only complaint about the stop-loss payment approved by the subcommittee is that the $500 is far less than the $1,500 monthly benefit initially proposed by Lautenberg and Sutton.

House aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the subcommittee decided to reduce the payment to $500 in order to make it fully retroactive, covering everyone who has faced stop-loss since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“It was a choice between a big payment for stop-loss orders issued in the future or a smaller payment for everyone,” said one aide. “Being fair to everyone seemed the better thing to do.”

Lautenberg said the financial drain of having a parent or breadwinner away from home is more than $500 a month, and he indicated he will try to get the payment raised when the Senate takes up defense legislation in the fall.

With the government paying $100,000 or more to hire civilians to do the jobs of some service members and with the war in Iraq running $3 billion or more per week, Lautenberg said a $1,500 monthly payment for those whose military service is extended is not excessive.