Proposal may curb reserve forces

Defense officials can expect a fight if they embrace a plan from an internal study group that would urge Congress to cut drill pay and annual retirement points for Reserve and National Guard members in return for allowing retired pay to start years sooner than the current age-60 threshold.

The warning came last week from Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Andrew B. Davis, executive director of the Reserve Officers Association.

Davis charged that the 11th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation "paints an incomplete picture" of drill pay purposes today and that its director, Thomas L. Bush, pushed unsuccessfully for the same "total force compensation" concept a decade ago as a senior policy official on reserve affairs at the Pentagon.

The QRMC proposes making Reserve and Guard compensation less costly and more flexible to meet recruiting and retention targets.

The study, released in June, recommends replacing the tradition of paying two days' basic pay for a day of weekend drill with a new formula: one day of basic pay plus housing and food allowance for one day of drill.

The QRMC also proposes cutting retirement points earned per year by a drilling member from 75 down to 53 — or just a point for each of 24 weekend drill days, 14 more for two week's summer training and 15 annual participation points. This would represent a 30 percent cut in points earned toward future retirement pay calculations.

To ease the impact of these changes, the QRMC's "total-force compensation" concept also endorses earlier reserve retirement. Rather drawing an annuity at age 60, reservists with 20 or more qualifying years of service could draw retired pay 30 years after they first entered the military. So a member who entered service at age 18, for example, could draw reserve retirement at age 48.

Earlier retirement alone would not be enough to sustain the current force if drill pay and retirement points were to be cut. Indeed, the think-tank RAND explained in a background report for the QRMC that these changes alone would create a shortfall of 10 to 16 percent in the number of reserve component officers and a cut of 10 to 19 percent in the enlisted force.

The study suggested an incentive pay for drilling reservists, perhaps payable in a lump sum at the end of the year. Amounts would vary by rank and years of service and could also be used to modify the shape of the force. Some examples in the study show these incentive payments might equal 10 to 60 percent of annual reserve pay.

In briefing reporters on the importance of creating a new incentive pay to make the other elements for modernizing reserve compensation work, Bush acknowledged some risk. Will Congress fully fund the incentive pay account every year to the level the services argue they need? Those would be "discretionary" dollars that could be diverted elsewhere, Bush conceded.

Hanson at ROA sees more risk in assuming Congress, in exchange for cutting drill pay, would approve an earlier retirement plan for reservists. He noted how Congress four years ago voted to allow Reserve and Guard members who deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan to earn credit toward earlier retirement. But lawmakers still haven't found budget dollars to apply that change retroactively to the tens of thousands of personnel called up for war after 9-11 but before January 2008 when that credit change was enacted.

The QRMC and its critics acknowledge an era of belt-tightening is here. The QRMC says reserve compensation must be made more efficient if the force is to be sustained. But Hanson said if these efficiency moves are taken, when families and employers already are urging Reserve and Guard members "to drop the military thing," it could hollow out reserve components and ultimately jeopardize the entire all-volunteer force.

Tom Philpott can be contacted at Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, Va. 20120-1111, or by e-mail at:

[email protected]