I know CJ is not going to blog about this, so I guess I will. A few weeks back we had Mr. Lernes J. Hebert from the Office of the Secretary of Defense on You Served Radio talking about this stop-loss pay (Episode #102 http://www.blogtalkradio.com/youserved/2010/08/18/episode-102). Mr. Hebert was on to help spread the word to our listeners about this stop-loss back pay and the deadline to apply. I think at that time they still had around 100,000 that had not applied. Well it seems that Congress has acted to extend the deadline. Like CJ, I feel that if a service-member signs a contract that states a member could get extended or even called back if they have less than 8 years that they should not be separately compensated for something they knew was a possibility, even a slight one. I view this whole thing as a Democratically controlled Congress trying to come across as super-friendly to the military when the reality is that Democrats have been known not to be very sympathetic to the military. However it is what it is and these guys and gals are eligible for this money, so they might at well get it. Why should they be deprived if they eligible, especially if they didn’t know about this program because they had already gotten out?
So below is the latest on this program and it being extended.
Congress is giving Servicemembers and veterans a little more time — until Dec. 3 — to apply for the extra pay that is owed them if their active service was involuntarily extended between Sept. 11, 2001 and Sept. 30, 2008. The extension is included in the temporary appropriations bill, HR 3081, approved by Congress on Sept. 29. The stop-loss allowance is a $500 payment for every month in which a person was under orders to remain on active duty beyond their separation or retirement date. Retroactive payments covering the period of Sept. 11, 2001, through Sept. 30, 2008, were authorized by Congress last year, with a one-year eligibility period that was set to expire on Oct. 21. But only about 59,000 of the 145,000 people the Department of Defese (DoD) believes are due money have had their payments approved. Click here, to read more:http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/09/military-stop-loss-deadline-extension-093010w/
