Murtha pushes retroactive stop-loss payments

Murtha pushes retroactive stop-loss payments
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Dec 11, 2008 13:15:33 EST

Retroactive stop-loss allowances of up to $500 a month could be included in the next supplemental war funding bill, providing back payments for anyone whose military service was involuntarily extended since the 2001 terrorist attacks, a key lawmaker said Wednesday.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, said about 185,000 people would be eligible for one month of retroactive payment for any month during which their separation or retirement was delayed by as little as one day.

Congress created the stop-loss allowance earlier this year, but restricted the payments only to people affected by involuntary extensions in fiscal 2009, which began on Oct. 1 and ends on Sept. 30. Those payments have not yet begun because the Army — the only service that has had people under stop-loss orders since Oct. 1 — is still working out details, including whether to pay the full $500-per-month maximum authorized under the law, or a lesser level of payment.
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New disability pay policy not retroactive-shit out of luck again

New disability pay policy not retroactive
By Tom Philpott, Special to Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, January 26, 2008



Former Army Capt. Hunter Smart of Phenix City, Ala., an injured veteran of the Iraq war, expected to find new severance pay protection in the Wounded Warrior Act section of the new 2008 defense authorization bill.

But when Smart took a close look this week he found a hole in the bill, rather than an extra $35,000.

Smart was pleased to read a few months ago that a provision in the bill would help medically separated veterans. If their disability was incurred in a combat zone, or in combat-related operations, military disability severance pay no longer will have to be recouped by the government before the veteran begins to draw full disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

With this change, Congress is embracing a recommendation of the Veterans’ Disability Benefits Commission. When veterans see their careers shortened by combat-related injuries, it said, they should get to keep both their lump-sum severance pay and full monthly VA disability pay.

But Smart was disappointed to learn this week that the new severance pay protection will apply only to combat-related medical separations after the bill is signed into law. That means VA compensation for Smart will be reduced over time by $35,000 in severance pay he received from the Army when he was separated as unfit last March.

“That this will not be retroactive is shameful,” he said. “It should go back to cover at least all of the Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.”
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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=51916