Expanding Reserve Early Retirement

Reservists and National Guard personnel mobilized for war and national emergencies for periods of 90 days or longer since Sept. 11, 2001, could see their age-60 threshold for receiving reserve retirement lowered under a bill (S 2836) introduced April 9 by ten Republican and Democratic senators.

"The bill we are introducing today enhances what we did in last year's defense bill and rewards our men and women who have deployed since our nation was attacked," said Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.).

Congress voted a compromise last year that allows only reserve component members deployed after Jan. 28, for 90 days or more, to earn the right to retire earlier than age 60.

Chambliss, who led the effort to reduce reserve retirement age by tying the initiative to current and future wartime deployments, now joins with colleague to try to have early retirement credit applied retroactively to more than 600,000 reservists and Guard members who deployed since 9/11.

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Many of them have been unhappy to learn they were left out of last year's action. Congress only found money enough in the FY 2008 defense budget to apply the early retirement provision to deployment time served after the 2008 defense authorization bill was signed.

For every consecutive 90 days spent mobilized, reservists will see the traditional age-60 start for annuities reduced by three months. Therefore a reservist eligible to retire who mobilized for a year after Jan. 28 can begin to draw retired pay at age 59.

Chambliss, in an interview, said extending the early retirement provision to deployments since 9/11 would bump the estimated cost to $560 million over five years, up from $35 million for last year's change.

Given the price tag, he suggested, the goal of the new bill, called the National Guard and Reserve Retired Pay Equity Act of 2008, to cover all 600,000 reservists deployed since 9/11, might not be reached this year.

"At the end of the day, we're not likely to get it all in one year," he said. "We're probably going to have to get it in increments. But those folks who went to Iraq [or Afghanistan] from 2001 through 2007 will ultimately be entitled to the benefits of this provision."

Read part two of this week's Military Update.

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