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COLA Bubbling Fuel price increases helped inflation jump 0.8 percent in April. With five months leſt in the fiscal year, it’s al- ready risen a cumulative 2.9 percent. If that rate continues, retirees could see a fairly substantial COLA for 2012. Check out the trend for your- self, at www.moaa.org/ colawatch.


• enhanced authority and responsibilities for the secretary of the Army to oversee Army national military cemeteries, includ- ing Arlington National Cemetery, Va.; • multiple provisions to improve deploy- ment-related mental health assessments for active duty, Guard, and Reserve personnel; • a requirement for DoD to establish a uni- fied medical command; • designation of the chief of the National Guard Bureau as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; • establishment of a registry of incidents in which servicemembers were exposed to oc- cupational and chemical hazards during de- ployments and an assessment of health risks for personnel exposed to open-air burn pits; • authority for members of the Individual Ready Reserve who have been called to ac- tive duty for at least one year since Sept. 11, 2001, to purchase premium-based TRI- CARE coverage on the same basis as mem- bers of the retired reserve; • a requirement for DoD to develop a plan to call up a limited number of Guard and Reserve forces for missions short of war; • initiatives to enhance suicide-prevention efforts and improve assessment and treat- ment of post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury; and • prohibition on using names and images of living or deceased servicemembers on retail products without permission from the ser- vicemembers or their surviving families.


Reserves’ Future


in Flux Report urges changes.


O 32 MILITARY OFFICER JULY 2011


utgoing Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs Dennis McCarthy briefed MOAA


and other partners in The Military Coali- tion in mid-May on the “Comprehensive


Review of the Future Role of the Reserve Component.” McCarthy cochaired this study with Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Gen. James Cartwright, USMC. The gist of the report is the Guard and


Reserve should remain a “force of choice” for military missions instead of a “force of necessity.” McCarthy noted current law only allows calling reservists to active duty in response to emergency situations like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Among other recommendations, the


report proposes: • new authority to call up and deploy Guard and Reserve forces on a recurring nonemergency basis — e.g., for regular deployments to Korea to help reduce the number of active troops there; • a common DoD total-force costing methodology to better compare regular versus reserve-component personnel, op- erating, individual, and unit costs; • options for “rebalancing” active duty and Guard and Reserve elements to allocate diminishing resources between the active and reserve components without accepting undue risk to the nation’s security; • consolidating the 28 types of military or- ders a reservist can serve under to about six to simplify the purpose and funding for ac- tive versus inactive (drill) duty; • a “continuum of service” concept to let servicemembers move easily between active duty (regular) status and reserve status. McCarthy noted there has not been a lot of progress on the idea. MOAA believes this idea sounds good philosoph- ically, but history indicates short-term service needs would trump commitments to servicemembers who might expect to pursue it; and • sustaining the Reserve Affairs Office as the overseer of reserve forces policy in DoD — in contrast to the recommendation of the 2008 Commission on the National Guard and Reserves to eliminate the office.


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