Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Here are some fresh developments that feuding politicians have created for the U.S. military in wartime: - Four service branches, excluding only the Navy, have suspended tuition assistance through at least September this year, a move that will interrupt continuing education plans for tens of thousands of service members and force others to use GI Bill benefits earlier than planned. - All of the services expect recruiting to get a lot more difficult as recruiter travel is restricted, recruiting commands are forced to cut...
The Joint Chiefs are breathing a bit easier after the House voted last week to fund the government through September, and included a 2013 defense appropriations bill that would give the armed services more money and budget flexibility to ease the threat of a wartime readiness crisis. House passage of the bill, HR 933, also drove home a bracing reality: that even the most conservative defense hawks are set to allow arbitrary "sequestration" cuts to clobber portions of the defense budget, including civilian personnel paychecks... Full story
The Obama administration pared back its plan to develop a single integrated electronic health record system for the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs due to shrinking defense budgets and rising costs. If the single system were built "from scratch," as planned, it would cost up to $12 billion, double the estimate given to Congress two years ago. These details came to light last week during a hearing of the House Veterans Affairs Committee where VA and Defense health officials had uncomfortable moments explaining the... Full story
Defense Department civilian and military leaders gave full details last week of the readiness crisis unfolding across America's armed forces, and got back not a whit of reassurance from Congress that relief is on the way. Members of the once-powerful House and Senate armed services committees spoke as though resigned to the notion that U.S. forces could be hollowed out over the next several years due to political gridlock and a now infamous "sequestration" gimmick that made a hostage of the defense budget, then wounded it,... Full story
Lt. Cmdr. Jack Townsend, a Navy Reserve retiree in Richmond, Va., first became aware a decade ago that he wasn't considered a military "veteran" under federal law. It's been bothering him ever since. Townsend was applying for a job when asked for a copy of his DD Form 214, "Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty," to prove veteran status. Townsend, who had earned his reserve commission through the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, didn't have a DD 214 because he never had served under active duty orders. He did...
Congressional leaders appear to have reached consensus that it is safer politically to allow deep and arbitrary cuts to military budgets than it is to negotiate a large debt-reduction deal that would have names attached. With Republicans and Democrats unwilling to make difficult decisions to address budget deficits in a balanced way, the military is being forced to cut training, cancel construction projects, defer maintenance of ships, aircraft and vehicles, cancel professional conferences, halt most temporary duty... Full story
This time last year the Air Force unveiled a plan to cut Air National Guard strength by 5,100 members along with more than 200 Guard aircraft. They touted this as a reasonable efficiency, in part because Guard squadrons cost more to operate than active duty squadrons. That argument was dead wrong, says Maj. Gen. Arnold L. Punaro, a retired Marine Corps reservist and chairman of the Reserve Forces Policy Board. In a new report, the advisory board he leads urges the Department of Defense to stop ignoring the true and... Full story
Unbending politicians who hold defense budgets hostage while refusing to cut a deal to address the nation's debt crisis are putting at risk the readiness of America's armed forces. That's what the Joint Chiefs warned last week in a letter to the House and Senate armed services committees. "We are on the brink of creating a hollow force due to an unprecedented convergence of budget conditions and legislation that could require (keeping) more forces than requested while underfunding (their) readiness," the seven members of the... Full story
The military's managed-care option — TRICARE Prime — will be ended Oct. 1 for retirees, their family members and for military survivors who reside more than 40 miles from a military treatment facility or from a base closure site, TRICARE Management Activity announced last week. Most of these 171,400 beneficiaries will need to shift health coverage from Prime to TRICARE Standard, the military's fee-for-service health insurance option. For beneficiaries who use more than preventive health care during the year, the shift wil...
House-Senate conferees have agreed to the more modest House-passed plan for raising drug co-payments on military family members and retirees who fill prescriptions at TRICARE retail outlets or through mail order. The fee increases are scheduled to take effect Feb. 1, TRICARE officials said as the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill, with many other provisions impacting the military community next year, moved toward final passage. The new pharmacy fee plan includes a requirement that beneficiaries 65 and older have all...
Late-hour speeches by Republican Sens. Tom Coburn (Okla.) and John McCain (Ariz.) on runaway military health costs led the Senate Tuesday to shelve a defense bill amendment that would have spared family members and retirees more burdensome co-pays on drug prescriptions filled off base. The timing of their opposition, in the last hours of consideration of the 2013 defense authorization bill when amendments were only being approved by unanimous consent, allowed Coburn and McCain to block the Senate from supporting the softer...
The House and Senate will decide in the next few weeks how military pharmacy fees will be raised in 2013, a step that arguably will be the most significant taken to date to slow growth in military health care budgets. Out-of-pocket costs for military families and retirees who have prescriptions filled in the TRICARE network of retail pharmacies depend on final language in the fiscal 2013 Defense Authorization Act. Congress intends to pass a final defense bill by mid-December. The House-passed plan for pharmacy fees could win... Full story
Soldiers and Marines have had the most deployments, seen the toughest fighting and suffered the greatest number of U.S. casualties in recent wars. And as with most post-war periods, ground forces also will see their career opportunities tighten faster than for other service branches. The Army plans to shed 60,000 troops, or 11 percent of its active force, to reach 490,000 by fiscal 2017. The Marine Corps will cut 20,000-5,000 a year over the next four years — to reach an end-strength of 182,100. Both services say they are d... Full story
On the stage, seated with a small group of wounded warriors sharing stories of grievous injuries and inspirational recoveries, is an attractive young woman with short and spiked blond hair.When it's her turn to speak, she does so confidently and with a pleasing southern drawl.Tara Dixon introduces herself as an Army Reserve major and a board-certified trauma surgeon with special training to care for burn victims.Dixon got some of her surgical training in Baltimore and some more at the University of Southern California. She...
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has proposed opening military TRICARE networks of civilian health care providers to veterans who can't get timely mental health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs. TRICARE networks currently exist to provide health care to military personnel and retirees, their families and survivors. Two days after Romney's pledge, President Obama signed an executive order with several new initiatives to improve access to mental health care services for veterans, service members and their...
Absentee ballot requests from military members and spouses are alarmingly low this election year, a voter advocacy group contends. It blames the Department of Defense for foot-dragging on absentee voter reforms that were enacted after the last presidential election. A four-page report, "Military Voting Update: A Bleak Picture in 2012," builds its worrisome conclusions on what arguably are some thin reeds of data on early ballot requests across nine states, all of which have large military populations and can track voter...
Members of Congress are more interested in winning re-election in November than in removing before then the budget "sequestration" knife that threatens to lop 10 percent off 2,500 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...
Members of Congress are more interested in winning re-election in November than in removing before then the budget "sequestration" knife that threatens to lop 10 percent off 2,500 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... Full story
The Defense Department's push to phase in substantial TRICARE fee increases for military retirees came under fresh attack from Congress and military associations last week after officials conceded an unexpected "downward spike" in TRICARE cost growth tied to private sector health care. Robert Hale, the DoD comptroller, held a press conference Thursday morning to defend the credibility of department claims that soaring health costs make the TRICARE benefit "unsustainable" unless retirees pay more. Defense officials had based...
The Defense Department's push to phase in substantial TRICARE fee increases for military retirees came under fresh attack from Congress and military associations last week after officials conceded an unexpected "downward spike" in TRICARE cost growth tied to private sector health care. Robert Hale, the DoD comptroller, held a press conference Thursday morning to defend the credibility of department claims that soaring health costs make the TRICARE benefit "unsustainable" unless retirees pay more. Defense officials had based...
House committees on armed services and veterans affairs held a joint hearing last week to review details of President Obama's plan to improve the Transition Assistance Program for separating and retiring military members, with a kind of five-to-seven-day "reverse boot camp" available by late 2013 to smooth transition to civilian life and employment. But lawmakers were more interested in asking their witnesses — the secretaries of defense and of veteran affairs — for progress on some older initiatives that so far have fal...
House committees on armed services and veterans affairs held a joint hearing last week to review details of President Obama's plan to improve the Transition Assistance Program for separating and retiring military members, with a kind of five-to-seven-day "reverse boot camp" available by late 2013 to smooth transition to civilian life and employment. But lawmakers were more interested in asking their witnesses — the secretaries of defense and of veteran affairs — for progress on some older initiatives that so far have fal...
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. Republicans so far...
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 came last week 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... Full story
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 came last week 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... Full story
