thedrifter
05-29-07, 07:32 AM
Corps offers cash for enlistment extensions
By John Hoellwarth - jhoellwarth@militarytimes.com
Posted : June 04, 2007
If seeing your section’s new private first class safely through his first combat deployment isn’t motivation enough to extend your enlistment long enough to make one last trip to the sandbox, now there’s money in it too, according to a May 21 Corps-wide message.
Marines slated to leave active duty before Sept. 30 who extend their end of active service into next fiscal year to make a seven-month deployment with their unit are entitled to $3,000 in assignment incentive pay, according to MarAdmin 323/07.
Marines who extend to make a yearlong deployment rate $6,000 under the new policy, which applies only to active-duty Marines, but does not specify whether they must be an officer or enlisted.
The payments authorized by the Corps’ “combat extension program” are retroactive to Oct. 1, 2006, and include Marines who extended into fiscal 2008 if their extension was made to accommodate a deployment, according to the message.
According to the MarAdmin, the new extension incentive has three goals. It supports the commandant’s intent that every Marine be given the opportunity to go to war; retains experienced warriors; and helps achieve a “deployment-to-dwell ratio” that keeps Marines home two months for every month they spend in a combat zone.
In order to qualify for the money, the deployment must be with a Marine expeditionary unit, or the Marine must deploy to Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Bahrain, the Horn of Africa, or other locations “as designated by the commandant of the Marine Corps,” according to the message.
Marines looking to extend under the program must have less than 12 months left on their contract and “must agree to remain with their current unit or be re-assigned to a deploying unit based on the needs of the Marine Corps,” the message states.
A spokesman for Manpower and Reserve Affairs at Quantico, Va., declined to comment on what individual Marines could do to facilitate their reassignment to a deploying unit in order to comply with the policy.
Though the policy does not specify a minimum length for qualifying extension, it requires Marines to extend into fiscal 2008 long enough to “account for both the entire deployment and post deployment transition time.”
If a Marine who extends under the new policy later decides to re-enlist before completing the extension, it “will not affect the payment of this incentive,” the message states.
Manpower’s spokesman declined to comment on how many Marines might rate back pay under the new policy, but personnel records on hand at I and II Marine Expeditionary Forces show that many Marines have volunteered to delay their exit out of a sense of commitment to their fellow Marines without a monetary incentive.
One month into the current fiscal year, 864 members of the 1st Marine Division had volunteered to stay long enough to deploy this fiscal year, according to numbers released in November.
Updated figures from 1st Marine Division and I MEF were not immediately available, but II MEF spokesman Lt. Col. Curtis Hill said at least 564 Marines stationed with the operational forces headquartered in Camp Lejeune, N.C., had executed extensions into fiscal 2008 that now rate payment under the new policy.
Hill added that this number could well belie a larger population of eligible Marines because each of the MEF’s major subordinate commands “can extend them without a requirement to report that information to the MEF.”
Ellie
By John Hoellwarth - jhoellwarth@militarytimes.com
Posted : June 04, 2007
If seeing your section’s new private first class safely through his first combat deployment isn’t motivation enough to extend your enlistment long enough to make one last trip to the sandbox, now there’s money in it too, according to a May 21 Corps-wide message.
Marines slated to leave active duty before Sept. 30 who extend their end of active service into next fiscal year to make a seven-month deployment with their unit are entitled to $3,000 in assignment incentive pay, according to MarAdmin 323/07.
Marines who extend to make a yearlong deployment rate $6,000 under the new policy, which applies only to active-duty Marines, but does not specify whether they must be an officer or enlisted.
The payments authorized by the Corps’ “combat extension program” are retroactive to Oct. 1, 2006, and include Marines who extended into fiscal 2008 if their extension was made to accommodate a deployment, according to the message.
According to the MarAdmin, the new extension incentive has three goals. It supports the commandant’s intent that every Marine be given the opportunity to go to war; retains experienced warriors; and helps achieve a “deployment-to-dwell ratio” that keeps Marines home two months for every month they spend in a combat zone.
In order to qualify for the money, the deployment must be with a Marine expeditionary unit, or the Marine must deploy to Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Bahrain, the Horn of Africa, or other locations “as designated by the commandant of the Marine Corps,” according to the message.
Marines looking to extend under the program must have less than 12 months left on their contract and “must agree to remain with their current unit or be re-assigned to a deploying unit based on the needs of the Marine Corps,” the message states.
A spokesman for Manpower and Reserve Affairs at Quantico, Va., declined to comment on what individual Marines could do to facilitate their reassignment to a deploying unit in order to comply with the policy.
Though the policy does not specify a minimum length for qualifying extension, it requires Marines to extend into fiscal 2008 long enough to “account for both the entire deployment and post deployment transition time.”
If a Marine who extends under the new policy later decides to re-enlist before completing the extension, it “will not affect the payment of this incentive,” the message states.
Manpower’s spokesman declined to comment on how many Marines might rate back pay under the new policy, but personnel records on hand at I and II Marine Expeditionary Forces show that many Marines have volunteered to delay their exit out of a sense of commitment to their fellow Marines without a monetary incentive.
One month into the current fiscal year, 864 members of the 1st Marine Division had volunteered to stay long enough to deploy this fiscal year, according to numbers released in November.
Updated figures from 1st Marine Division and I MEF were not immediately available, but II MEF spokesman Lt. Col. Curtis Hill said at least 564 Marines stationed with the operational forces headquartered in Camp Lejeune, N.C., had executed extensions into fiscal 2008 that now rate payment under the new policy.
Hill added that this number could well belie a larger population of eligible Marines because each of the MEF’s major subordinate commands “can extend them without a requirement to report that information to the MEF.”
Ellie