Iowa National Guard Troops Getting Their Due Compensation

This week we learned that hundreds of Iowa National Guard troops who served in the War on Terrorism, including many who served with the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 34th Infantry, which was one of the longest serving units in Operation Iraqi Freedom, will receive all of the back compensation they deserve from serving extended combat duty in Iraq.  The Defense Department has said that they expect most of the service members to have their payments by March 19.   

Nearly 800 members of the Iowa National Guard were caught in the middle of a delay between the announcement of a new program by the Department of Defense and the establishment of the program by the individual services.  The Post Deployment and Mobilization Respite Absence (PDMRA) program was designed to provide service members who were deployed beyond established rotation cycles to Iraq and Afghanistan (and in specific instances to Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Kyrgyzstan) additional time to reintegrate back into civilian life, as well as to help with retention of service members who had experienced long tours.

I was the lead co-sponsor of a bill in the Senate to compensate these Iowa National Guard members and nearly 20,000 other U.S. service members who were unable to take advantage of this benefit because of the bureaucratic delay. 

Our bill ended up being included in the Defense Department authorization bill that was signed into law in October 2009.  Since the bill was signed into law, the service members have been waiting for the implementation guidelines to make their way through the bureaucracy at the Department of Defense. 

This has been a long haul for these brave men and women.  It’s great news that they will finally get the compensation they are due.