Military pay and benefits, including health care, have risen more than 87 percent since 2001, Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s personnel panel. That’s 30 percent higher than inflation, although the Defense Department’s overall active duty end strength grew only by three percent during that same time period, said Hale in testimony last week. He said Pentagon officials “strongly believe” that changes—such as slowing the rate of growth in military pay raises and revising the cost-sharing formula for health care—are necessary to curb those costs. Should Congress not support DOD’s suggested changes, the Pentagon “will face a major problem that would jeopardize our defense strategy,” warned Hale. Already DOD has proposed end strength reductions of some 124,000 across the active duty and reserve components by Fiscal 2017 to help absorb the spending cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act. Absent the congressional support, the Pentagon would have to make additional cuts in much-needed investments or shed another 60,000 troops by Fiscal 2017 to compensate, asserted Hale. (Hale’s prepared testimony)
A provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill will require the Defense Department to include the military occupational specialty of service members who die by suicide in its annual report on suicide deaths, though it remains to be seen how much data the department will actually disclose.