Military Update

Commissary patrons will soon see the “biggest transformational effort” made by the Defense Commissary Agency in its 21 year history, says DeCA Director Joseph H. Jeu.

For starters, by this time next year military families might be ordering groceries online, Monday through Friday, with service members or spouses being able to pick up the order curbside on their way home from work.

Perhaps not many months after that, military shoppers with smart phones will be able to use them to compare commissary prices with commercial supermarkets and make instant buy decisions, all through a secure application available only to military patrons.

With members of congress focused on winning re-election, TRICARE pharmacy users will get a temporary reprieve from stiff co-payment increases on prescriptions filled at TRICARE retail outlets or mail order.

The 112th Congress has reconvened after a five-week recess, primarily to pass a “continuing appropriation resolution” or “CR,” which will allow federal departments, including defense, to continue to spend at 2012 budget levels until new funding bills are passed after the Nov. 6 election.

From time to time, military members who plan to serve full careers are driven by unforeseen circumstances to leave active duty, perhaps to support the family business at a critical time or to care for an ailing parent.

Other careerists, particularly those in high-tempo units or with high-demand skills, want to take a break and do something else, perhaps to have a child or finish that degree or just slow down their lives for a while.

Members of Congress are more interested in winning reelection in November than in removing before then the budget “sequestration” knife that threatens to lop 10 percent off 2500 defense programs starting Jan. 2.

That was the signal that lawmakers sent at a House Armed Services Committee hearing this month where the White House budget director and the deputy defense secretary explained how sequestration would shred defense budgets and degrade force readiness if Congress fails to block the process by negotiating a new $1.2 trillion debt-reduction deal.

The Defense Department’s push to phase in substantial TRICARE fee increases for military retirees came under fresh attack from Congress and military associations this week after officials conceded an unexpected “downward spike” in TRICARE cost growth tied to private sector health care.

Worried by the “sequestration” blade set to fall on defense budgets in January, Republicans are sounding alarms with special hearings, a flurry of press releases and bills that offer at least interim solutions.

But will Republicans also reconsider their “anti-tax hike” pledge to the powerful lobbyist Grover Norquist? A rising chorus of critics, including some prominent Republicans, argue they must, and soon, if Congress is to avoid a devastating hit to military readiness and America’s defense industry.

Defense officials can expect a fight if they embrace a plan from an internal study group that would urge Congress to cut drill pay and annual retirement points for Reserve and National Guard members in return for allowing retired pay to start years sooner than the current age-60 threshold.

The warning comes from Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Andrew B. Davis, executive director of the Reserve Officers Association.

Davis charged that the 11th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation “paints an incomplete picture” of drill pay purposes today and that its director, Thomas L. Bush, pushed unsuccessfully for the same “total force compensation” concept a decade ago as a senior policy official on reserve affairs at the Pentagon.