washingtonscene To date, that hasn’t proven to be the case,
and we stand in awe of the sacrifices made by our troops and their families. But MOAA fears military and civilian
leaders, Congress, and the country have come to take their sacrifices for granted. From that perspective, MOAA was
humbled and shaken by an Army spouse’s answer to a question asked at the Military Spouse Symposium May 13. “How do you respond when someone
expresses sympathy for the sacrifices your family continues to make for the rest of us?” she was asked. “We’ve come to accept that this is our
life,” she said. “We deal with it and get on with raising our family the best we can.” On one hand, that brave, stoic response
speaks volumes about America’s new “greatest generation.” But, on the other hand, it’s a sad observation on the position military families have been put in. The right and honorable response to
this brave woman should be, “No, you should not — now or ever — be forced to accept it as a normal thing for military families to have their servicemember de- ployed every other year, indefinitely.” It’s wrong that our national leaders have
put servicemembers and their families in this position — all while giving lip service to a goal of getting to a 1-to-2 or 1-to-3 ratio of deployments to “home time” while never taking the necessary steps to get there. Why have they not done it? Because they think it’s too expensive to build a force large enough to maintain that ratio. That lack of action only shifts the cost to those who least deserve to bear it — the troops and their families. Does there never come a point at which
we ask, “How much is too much to ask?” If we’re going to take our country to war
and still refuse to fund a force large enough to meet that mission, we will not escape paying a far heavier price in other ways. Service leaders point with pride to high retention rates, and politicians seem to
interpret that as meaning “military people obviously enjoy being deployed, so they can keep this pace up indefinitely.” Following that logic eventually will
break the best force America has ever had — in more ways than one.
“Gray-Area” TRICARE
Update An Oct. 1 implementation is sought.
T
he FY 2010 Defense Authoriza- tion Act established the TRICARE Retired Reserve (TRR) program
to provide TRICARE coverage for “gray- area” retirees (retired guardmembers and reservists who haven’t yet attained age 60). The program is the final step in providing guardmembers and reservists continuous TRICARE coverage throughout and after their military careers. To be eligible, a guardmember or re-
servist must be qualified for a nonregu- lar retirement at age 60 (but not yet be 60) and cannot be enrolled or eligible to enroll in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. TRR is authorized to begin Oct. 1, and
TRICARE officials say they expect it to begin on schedule. However, the process of placing the program in the federal register could be a potential snag. The OMB needs to approve an interim final ruling before the Pentagon can begin implementing TRR. MOAA and The Mili- tary Coalition have written OMB Director Peter Orszag urging expeditious action to allow TRR implementation on schedule. TRR coverage will be exactly the same
as TRICARE Standard (which covers 75 percent of allowable charges after a de- ductible of $150 for
[CONTINUES ON PAGE 38] AU G U S T 2 0 1 0 MI L I T A R Y O F F I C E R 3 5 COLA Inches Up
■ Inflation ticked up only 0.1 percent in May. With four months left in the fiscal year, inflation still needs to climb by more than a half percent for retirees to see any COLA increase for 2011.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92