Long Overdue

Active and retired military pay and benefits are always an issue of concern. The "guarantees" which we learned about when we raised our right hands and "repeat after me" are ephemeral and can be withdrawn in the blink of a congress-critter's eye. As fewer and fewer ever spent any time at the point of our increasingly rusty spear it becomes easier to discount the importance of keeping those promises.

Here's a list of some tweaks to the system which just came out of committee. One of them is surprising in that it is so long overdue. It is a reduction which I can whole-heartedly endorse:

Proposals Pass Unanimously

This is the one:

Changes the rules for hos­tile fire and immi­nent dan­ger pay, pro­rat­ing the $225 pay­ments accord­ing to the num­ber of days spent in a qual­i­fy­ing area rather than be paid on a monthly basis. (Cur­rently HF/ID pay is paid-in-full regard­less of the num­ber of days spent in the qual­i­fy­ing area.)

It was a running joke during the Southeast Asia unpleasantness about the combat pay and combat tax exclusion monthly migrations. Folks living in sunny California and flying trash-haulers from Travis AFB would plan their schedules for flights to perfectly hit Saigon or simply overfly South Vietnam at the end of the month. If they timed it just right they could bag two months of supplemental pay and tax benefit for the single trip.

At Korat AB in Thailand the support troops didn't get combat pay because they weren't subject to hostile fire like the aircrews. That little oversight was creatively remedied for the non-rated officers, however, with a monthly trip on the base support C-47 to one of the bases in Vietnam. A couple hour flight, a lunch at the Officer's Club and a flight back got them combat pay. The hard working enlisted folks that busted their humps on the flight line making the mission work didn't get that benefit.

That abuse didn't look so attractive anymore when late in 1966 the airplane crashed on landing at Danang killing all aboard. Even something as mundane as a day-trip had danger in those days.

I don't begrudge any warrior combat pay. It can't pay enough for the hardships endured and the danger. I do applaud that it has finally been recognized that the system has been abused.

UPDATE: Proving that I don't have perfect recall and that I can acknowledge correction, my email this morning offered this detail about the accident:

The date was 26 Nov 66 and it happened during take-off at Tan Son Nhut not landing at DaNang.  Here's the intro to the crash that I wrote in my database:

A C-47D belonging to the 388 TFW crashed in a rice paddy and burst into flames near Saigon, South Vietnam, killing all 25 people aboard including one civilian.  The aircraft, 44-76574, crashed due to a problem with the left engine after taking off from Tan Son Nhut Airport heading home to Korat, RTAFB, Thailand.