Despite suspension of payments,
Army still counting deployment days
By B.R. Sargent, Seoul
bureau
YONGSAN GARRISON — Congress is still keeping track of how long
soldiers are deployed despite recent changes in the way troops are paid for deployments.
A recent Defense Department release said it “suspended its
requirement that services track deployment days and pay $100 per day to troops who are
deployed more than 400 days in any two-year period.”
But that doesn’t mean that the services have stopped counting
deployment days, said Maj. Alana Phillips, chief of Yongsan’s personnel systems
division.
“They’re not suspending the counting,” she said.
“What they’re suspending is payment. Congressional reporting is still
required.”
The 2000 National Defense Authorization Act mandated that all
services report the number of days personnel spend on deployments. Phillips said the Army
was tracking these numbers “years before” Congress made it mandatory.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz announced the policy change
Oct. 8, suspending any payments that may have taken effect Nov. 5, the first day anyone
could have surpassed 400 deployment days.
Phillips explained that if a soldier is away from his home past
midnight, whether for training, exercises or temporary duty, the soldier is considered
deployed.
It is very difficult for soldiers to accumulate more than 400
deployment days, said Phillips. Every day the soldier is at his home base, his accumulated
days are reduced by a day.
For instance, once a soldier is at his home duty station for 120
days, following a 120-day deployment, the database counter shows his total number of days
deployed as zero.
The law encourages better distribution of deployments across the
force, with high deployment per diem paid to those who spent more than their share of time
away from home.
Four 2nd Infantry Division soldiers on the Demilitarized Zone have
accumulated more than 200 deployment days since Oct. 2000.
Deployment pay, or lack thereof, may become an issue for some
servicemembers who will not receive the money promised to them.
“The decision to suspend the program was not driven by money but
by operational requirements,” a Defense Department spokesperson said in a telephone
interview. “We are dedicated to doing what’s right by our servicemembers. We are
committed to maintaining that bond of faith between the DOD and the servicemember. Keeping
the mission in mind, we have to help them understand that we have their best interests at
heart. The senior leadership is committed to doing the right thing."
U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., recently introduced a bill
attempting to revoke the Defense Department’s authority to suspend the
high-deployment, per-diem pay.
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