Guard a step closer to 'respite' compensation

Members of the Iowa National Guard are one step closer to being compensated $200 a day for their extended deployments.

A measure, introduced by Iowa Sens. Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin and others as part of the National Defense Authorization Act calls for retroactively paying soldiers for leave earned under the Post Deployment and Mobilization Respite Absence (PDMRA). It appears to be identical to language approved earlier by the House, according to a Grassley spokeswoman.

It's estimated 743 members of the Guard are among nearly 20,000 soldiers who did not receive leave benefits they were promised under prior legislation, National Guard Maj. Mike Wunn said Monday. Most of the Iowans are part of 1-133rd Infantry mobilized in September and October 2005, and returned from Iraq in July 2007. They are from units in Waterloo, Dubuque, Oelwein, Iowa Falls and Charles City.

The Iowans were not compensated because they “just got caught in the middle of a bureaucratic process,” Wunn said.

It's time to make good on the earlier promise, Grassley said.

“These Iowa National Guard members have gone long enough without the pay they rightly deserve,” Grassley said. “They were called to duty time and time again and served our country with distinction as part of one of the longest serving units in Operation Iraqi Freedom. To be cut out of earned benefits because of a bureaucratic snafu, is not doing these patriots right.”

The “respite leave” benefit was designed to provide service members who were deployed beyond established rotation cycles additional time to reintegrate into civilian life, as well as to help with retention of service members who had experienced long tours.