Jarrod Nordby, of Company C, 4-23 Infantry Regiment, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, rests between mission objectives near Rabea’a, Iraq, on June 27. The 172nd Brigade’s deployment to Iraq was extended as part of a plan to quell the violence in Baghdad. (USAF / AP)
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect the information detailed in a correction issued Aug. 22, 2006. In addition, the sixth paragraph, beginning with “The entire payment kicks in,” was inserted after the article appeared in print editions.
ARLINGTON, Va. — There is a silver lining for the 4,000 soldiers of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team who have been extended beyond their one-year Iraq deployment to quell the increasing violence in Baghdad: an extra $1,000 a month in their paychecks.
The money, which is called involuntary extension incentive pay, kicks in as soon as a soldier has spent more than 365 days in Iraq — either as 12-plus consecutive months, or a total of 12-plus months out of 15 months, according to Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army personnel spokesman.
The Pentagon first offered the bonus for 20,000 soldiers from the 1st Armored Division whose tours in Iraq and Kuwait were stretched beyond a year in April 2004.
At that time, the bonus was spelled out in a memorandum signed by Charles Abell, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.
Now the “Arctic Wolves” of the 172nd, from Fort Wainwright, Alaska, whose extension was announced July 27, are the beneficiaries of the policy, which does not carry an expiration date.
The entire payment kicks in on the first day of the month and is not pro-rated, so if a soldier comes home on, for example, Nov. 1, he will get the $1,000 for the entire month of November, according to Col. Jerald Barrett, chief of the Army’s Compensation Division.
The money will appear as two different payments on soldiers’ Leave and Earnings Statement (LES), Hilferty told Stars and Stripes on Friday.
First, soldiers will receive an extra $200 each month in hardship duty pay, in addition to the $100 per month in hardship duty pay that servicemembers in Iraq already receive.
The other $800 of the bonus will be listed as assignment incentive pay.
The only action soldiers need to take in order to get their bonus is to sign a “blanket” form that their unit will present them that lists all the soldiers who are eligible to receive the extra money, Hilferty said.
The lists are going to the 172nd’s deployed financing unit in Iraq, and ultimately to the Defense Finance Service, which will enter the data into each soldier’s master pay account.
Qualified soldiers should check the entitlements column in their end-of-the-month LESs to make sure that they are receiving the extra money (the midmonth LES doesn’t break out the different combat pays or withholding amounts, Hilferty noted).
The $1,000 payment will be tax-free for most soldiers, but not all: because it is considered incentive pay, not a bonus, it is subject to a maximum cap authorized by the Army for the tax exemption, which is the monthly salary of the most senior enlisted person in the Army.
That salary, $6,499.50, is earned by the Sergeant Major of the Army, according to the 2006 enlisted pay charts.
Any deployed officer who makes more than that amount per month —O-5s lieutenant colonels with more than 16 years of service, O-6 colonels with 14 years plus, and general officers —gets taxed on the amount that remains after the $6,499.50 is subtracted, Hilferty said.
So now, when the $1,000 “incentive pay” is added to the base salary of those 172nd officers who are eligible for the payment “and it pushes them over the top of the cap, they will have to pay taxes on whatever the extra amount is,” Hilferty said.
