Defense Department modifies “Deploy or get out” policy
Military Times is reporting the new changes to the Defense Department’s “Deploy or get out instruction” .
Service members wounded in combat will be exempt from the Defense Department’s new policy to be deployable in 12 months or face separation from the military, the Pentagon announced this week.
The policy tweak came after criticism that DoD was going to remove personnel who were only in non-deployable status because of their combat injuries, when the overall goal of the program was to target the thousands of military personnel who for fitness, health or other administrative reasons have not been deployable. The initiative is part of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ effort to improve the lethality and readiness of the services.
“Service members whose injuries were the result of hostile action, meet the criteria for awarding of the Purple Heart, and whose injuries were not the result of their own misconduct” are approved for retention, DoD said in its July 30 policy.
The DoD Instruction is available HERE in its entirety. They list the exceptions as follows:
1. Combat wounded. “These are service members whose injuries were the result of hostile action, meet the criteria for awarding of the Purple Heart, and whose injuries were not the result of their own misconduct.” The policy goes on to say that “disapproval of retention for non-deployable combat wounded service members, who wish to be retained and whose reason for non-deployability is a direct result of their combat wounds, may not be delegated.”
2. Pregnant and post-partum service members. Females are exempt for pregnancy-related health conditions during pregnancy through the post-partum period. Under the policy, pregnancy is considered a temporary non-deployable status, and the duration of that status after childbirth is left to the individual service secretaries.
3. Case-by-case exemptions. The service secretaries may grant exemptions on a case-by-case basis if the service member is filling in a specific position critical to the service.
4. Soon-to-retire. The service secretaries may grant exemptions for active duty service members who are three years away from regular retirement, or reserve component personnel who have accumulated 17 years of reserve service.
So now people can stay in the military without deploying just because they are missing a few body parts. And, am I the only one that sees the injustice in merely being pregnant as some kind of excuse for not deploying? It all seems a bit soft, why I can remember when…
Category: Military issues
Damned decent of them, exempting wounded warriors from the shitcan while they’re still healing.
That this even needed discussion is simply baffling.
OK, but if they were wounded in combat that means they’ve already deployed at some point, right?
I had thought this new policy was designed to kick out those who had shrewdly AVOIDED deploying during the past 17 years of war because of real or imagined ailments or disorders.
Those wounded in combat are, by definition, not in the population of those who (I thought) this policy was supposed to target anyway.
It annoys me a bit that as a 40+ year old National Guardsman I deployed twice (2003 and 2004) while there were younger and fitter active duty soldiers who never left CONUS or a nice safe billet in Germany despite the fact that we’ve been at war since 2001.
When USACAPOC was “divorced” from USASOC and one of the CSMs I knew had to go to the Army Reserve CSM conferences, he told us about one discussion he had with a couple of them there.
A couple of the CSMs saw he’d had 2 deployments already and was going for a 3rd and said, “man, it sucks they caught you for three of them, I’ve been able to stop from deploying. How come you can’t get out of it?”
There were some personnel who couldn’t deploy no matter how much they begged and pleaded to go. But, there were just as many who hid through various ways so they wouldn’t have to go even once, especially at higher ranks. Meanwhile, I had E5/6 troops who were on three in the first 8 years of their service.
Th CA SGM at WLC in 2012 was one of those. Made her rank and the closest she got to being deployed was in 2008 when she spent six months in Germany.
Rest of her deploymentt time was CONSUS with TRADOC. She told those of us with SII and CAB/CIB/EIB to remove them for the duration of the course because we were here to learn to things the Army way, not the deployment/how we do things back in our unit way.
I got her point. Just didn’t care for the methodology.
Wtf, I’d ask the Smadge which AR they’re quoting or Commanders guidance they were following, and respectfully decline.
This went thru my head as I read your story “…And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers..”
Problem is, if you go to NCOES and don’t do something they expect you to, bye bye, you’re headed home.
The easiest and best thing to do is just play the game until you get your 1058. Once you get that you can tell them to fuck off.
I had a guy who already had one trip to the sandbox go to WLC and do something similar. They told him “okay, here’s the task and here’s how you have to do it and teach others how to do it.” His response was, “but this is wrong, I’ve been downrange and that’s not how it’s done based on the new TTPs. This isn’t the right way to do it!” “Okay, got it, but you need to do it this way because that’s how it is tested.” They gave him a couple chances and he still taught it ‘his’ way and they sent him home with a fail. After that he was stuck as an E4 for at least another year, if not longer.
Even friends I know who have gone to the Sergeant Major’s Academy will say the same thing. “Got it, we might do something here you don’t like, or you think is incorrect. Do it our way and graduate.”
man…I turned 50 in Iraq.
These never deployed, game playing turds need to be weeded out like the ticks that they are.
Gotcha by one year. I was 50 when I arrived in-country. (smile)
30 in Egypt
40 in Iraq
50 in Afghanistan
Lipstick 6 has made it clear; Be home for 60 or suffer her wrath.
I turned 21 in Egypt, back in the mid 90’s. I then went to Somalia at the age of 22, 31 while in the Guard and on a stateside activation to replace Active Duty personnel who had deployed, and 41 in Pre Mob to go to Afghanistan.
Ago 46 and now out, and the wife is glad I am not going anywhere. She still worries about my brother, who is AGR and his unit is working up to deployment again.
Bureaucrats is why. Fucking bureaucrats.
I recall hearing the stories about females who regularly got pregnant prior to upcoming deployments, such amazing coincidences.
I think the bigger part of this is that, the Army is short personnel, so is the Air Force. I can’t recall why, might’ve been that whole reduction of force thing that happened a few years ago.
I’m sure more “waivers” will happen until the services are filled to comfortable levels.
Well, I’m glad they got that straightened out.
Now, can I go file a complaint because I couldn’t get a deployment if my life depended on it back in them there Olden Times? That was just TOTALLY discriminatory.
Hell we had females trying to get pregnant so they wouldn’t have to go to Kunsan for a year. Now that’s really thinking for the future.
I had students at AIT who were headed to DLI for language training after. They were thinking about getting married so they wouldn’t have to stay in the barracks there, they could live offpost.
The long-term thought processes don’t always fire properly in some.
“Marriage of convenience” is an old, old, tradition. I knew a few folks who got married for the bennies, then divorced upon discharge.
Can’t understand why a round-eye female would miss out on the chance to become a “12 month beauty queen” but I guess it takes all kinds.
When I was stationed in Korea with 2nd ID HQ at Camp Casey I used to modify running cadences to suit whatever duty station I was in. My favorite one went like this:
Kim Il Sung just before he died
Named four things that he wanted to ride
HUMMV, CUCV, TMP
And a 12 month queen from the 2nd ID!
That wouldn’t fly in today’s butt-hurt Army (in fact, it barely flew back in 1991 since there were several females in the G2 section where I worked but most of them were good humored enough to know the truth of it.)
Sounds fine to me.
Hopefully this will carry over to the National Guard also. I have had a few run ins with dud’s with rank that have been permanently non-deployable for over twenty years. Heart stents, pacemakers, diabetes, uncle is a senator or pregnant one week before deployment every deployment with no offspring to show for it.
imho #GTFO
It’s not only the preggos that bothers me but those who are exempt b/c they are within three years of retirement. Does the careerist sign off that he promises to retire? How exactly does that work, anyway? And that side, don’t we want those WITH experience of 17/18 years leading? I have a headache.
I believe that’s indirectly related to the 18 year sanctuary, 2/17.
Under current policy or Federal law; (I think its part of Title 10, but I’d have to check to be sure), personnel serving on active duty with 18 or more years of active duty can only be involuntarily discharged “for cause” or for medical disqualification (I think in the latter case it has to be a medical retirement). Barring that, they’re entitled to serve until 20 years of active duty service and then retire.
The previous policy allowed those serving on active duty to continue 1 year in a profile status. If someone had 17 years on active duty on the day they were injured, they’d be over 18 years the day they hit 12 months on profile – and thus would have achieved sanctuary status anyway. So in effect, the previous policy already provided a 3-year window for personnel in that case.
As I said elsewhere, I think simply using the existing med board policies after the normal recovery time for the individual’s injury would be the way to go – and medically discharge or retire those who don’t appear capable of returning to worldwide deployability. But if you’re going to have the policy DoD just declared, exempting those within 3 years of retirement merely continues what they were effectively doing before.
That’s my analysis as to the “why”. I have no secret contact in the Five Sided Asylum, so I have no idea if that’s why; but it makes sense. I could easily be wrong.
Addendum: the 18 year active duty sanctuary applies to members of the Reserve Components also. Back in the early/mid 1990s, apparently a few people in the USAR and/or ARNG actually managed to “game” the system and attain 18 years of active duty credit through a combination of extended active duty, short tours, annual training, and mobilizations/contingency support tours (all of those count as active duty service; only drills and other forms of IDT don’t). They then applied for sanctuary – and forced the Army to keep them on active duty until they achieved 20 years of active service and could retire under active duty rules.
Needless to say, HQDA wasn’t exactly thrilled.
In response, the Army added language to the form used to apply for voluntary active duty tours that specifically required the soldier to waive sanctuary as a condition of getting orders to active duty for that tour – and also required them to sign his/her name certifying they understood and agreed to that.
That didn’t stop all such attempts to game the system, though. I know of one case where an individual who afterwards tried to claim sanctuary in spite of having waived it in writing.
Things didn’t work out quite the way they’d planned. Since they’d voluntarily waived sanctuary in writing as a condition of receiving active duty orders for that tour, they were SOL. They were released from active duty at the end of the tour. I forget how old the individual was, but they weren’t yet 60 – so contrary to what they’d planned, they had to wait a while to start drawing their USAR retired pay.
I remember seeing slick-sleeved E7’s while I was de-mobing at Fort Stewart in December 2010 and thinking “Shit, all that Rank with no deployments?”, ditto with when I went to WLC at Eastover near Fort Jackson where about 80% of the class sported Combat Patches while maybe ten percent of the School Cadre had one and THEY claimed to know more about being in the ME than we did.
Signal was notorious for folks hiding out in the schoolhouse. ANCOC in 2004, my entire class was fresh from Iraq. 1SG decides he’s gonna talk to us about deployment. He hasn’t left the country since Desert Storm. Never laughed so hard in my life. He shyed away from us after that. Putz.
Lots of Spec 6’s in my Signal unit but at least they went home with something on their right sleeve.
“Those who can’t do, teach” comes to mind.
I know a retired CSM with 35 years service (served at the 4 star level) with zero deployments.
Zero…
His troops were going forward 3, 4, 5 times…
No respect for no go seniors…
You mean he didn’t go over for a 30 day long visit so he could strap on a TDY patch? That’s really surprising.
Maybe I’m going “against the current” here, but I don’t see this modification as being necessary.
I question the policy’s original recovery time limit (12 months is IMO too short a time for complete recovery from some injuries; 18 or 24 months would have IMO be a better choice). However, I think the idea is sound in principle; give those combat wounded a temporary exemption – but only a temporary one.
If someone is non-deployable and will be for the foreseeable future, the reason they cannot deploy frankly is irrelevant. The military isn’t designed to provide employment; it’s purpose is to defend the nation. And there’s a process already in place to deal with personnel who are long-term non-deployable: med boards. Quite a number of persons have been medically discharged or retired in the past due to wounds suffered in combat.
Anyone filling a critical billet who literally cannot be replaced due to experience/skills/qualifications could be exempted by their Service Secretary – so that category is probably unnecessary too. Frankly, I’d argue that they should be med boarded and if found medically unqualified they should be immediately transitioned, non-competitively, to an equivalent civilian position until a suitable replacement was found. Seems to me something like that existed to allow civilian retirees with critical skills to be re-hired by DoD without loss of pension during the “hot” part of the GWOT, so IMO something like that would be eminently do-able. Make such hires contingent on certification of need by a 3- or 4-star GO/FO, explicitly stating why a suitable replacement wasn’t available, and I think you’d be able to ensure it wasn’t abused.
I hate to say it, but I think the SECDEF either momentary “got soft” or got some really bad advice on this one.
I agree, but if you do not spell the policy out, toxic “leaders” will use any leeway to screw with people.
As for recovery, imagine breaking your back during the pre-deployment rehearsals…
that soldier needed 3 years to recover, but went to Iraq with us in 2010.
Some of that is who your docs are. I knew guys that tore an ACL or some other “short term” injury and were on profile for well over a year. They had to fight to get back to full duty.
Hopefully the mental health side has improved but getting the help they so encouraged in training videos was a one-way ticket to going nowhere and doing nothing fun for years.
I fear the bureaucracy of the medical side will push people into the bureaucracy of the “deploy or out”.
I always thought of pregnancy as being a self inflicted wound myself. I saw WM’s lay about on modified duty for nearly 18 months back in the cay and doing not much of anything while everyone else busted hump to get stuff done. That assuming the WM in question didn’t just pop the kid and then get out.
Being a Marine, what is your definition of WM? I’ve heard a few responses, just curious.
And of course, all the individual waivers for those in ‘transition’ which takes 18 months or more to become ‘stable’ in their transitioned state.
I was going to bring that up. Yes, yet another reason (one of many) to politely exclude people of that persuasion from military service.
Awesome. Thanks Secretary Mattis.
I never ever understood how anyone could join the Navy and not want to go to sea. Completely baffles me still.
I could never be a “sand crab.”
Of course, my first duty billet was landlocked. I learned a lot, but whenever the bosses asked me what I wanted to do, I always said, “I want to go to SEA!”
They finally got sick of hearing me, so I was put in a “direct support” where I supported skimmers and boats TAD. One year I spent 10 months underway. I LOVED it. I was challenged every day and met the challenge. Hardest jobs I ever had, but the most satisfying jobs I ever had.
I always say that my first 10 years in the USN were so much fun, I should have been paying the Navy, Chasing Rooskies all over the Pacific, Indian Ocean and Arabian Gulf.
Then there were the Sailors who wore it as a badge of honor that they never even saw a ship. If they felt that way, they should have joined the AIR FORCE!
When I was a division LCPO, I had a non-rate, straight out of boot camp, who told me she never, ever, EVER wanted to be on a ship. I strongly encouraged her to transfer to another service as quickly as possible, but in the meantime she was to get out of my sight!
If you don’t want to deploy, DO NOT join the military.
Heard a sea story once about a “CT” Marine who I knew who got out of the Corps and was looking for a job. He was interviewing at a bank and he asked them what their deployment policy was. LOL! My kind of shipmate!
I agree. I’m being pastured in Quantico now (109 days from retirement and counting), but I never wanted to be here or stuck in any base, post or station. My longest three years were being in Albany, GA (with SYSCOM – our acquisitions arm – at our eastern logistics base) and it was awful. Right after that, I wanted to get back with Marines doing Marine things so I spent the next four years in Okinawa. 2 years on the 31st MEU (lots of ship time there), a year at 1st MAW and the last year as the SE Asia planner for the MEF (lots of time in Thailand). I would have stayed longer, but it was time to come back and wind down the career. Now I’m here in Quantico and see lots of people who have been here for a VERY LONG TIME. Most have been individual augments from time to time (so not escaping completely or just checking a block for promotion) but with little Fleet time.
I just don’t get it. . .
I grew up in Western WY, used to have a lot of Sailors from the Idaho nuke school really disliking the area (not much ocean to speak of), especially the winters. We’d see a ton of FL plated cars in the ditch. SOME of them discovered the Hub bar and lived happily ever after, apparently.
I smell sheep shit!
Although 1–I lived in Bear Lake area for a long time as a kid, 2–prototype for me was April-October, 3–ended up in Pearl (rock fever, yay!), and 4–when I was there, The Mill was the place all the baby nukes hung out on Fri/Sat after day shift.
I’m remembering The Mill but I can’t recall exactly where it was. My misguided youth was in Driggs.
You know you’ve been at sea for a while when I ask my boss at my civilian job 20 years later if and when they need me in other parts of the country or even outside of it.
I think you learn 100x more in a new/challenging situation to which you’re not accustomed than you do sitting in the shop 40 hours a week.
When I retired and was looking for what I wanted to be when I grew up, one of the questions that came up repeatedly was about travel. Apparently some folks have an issue with having to travel for work.
My canned response was in my 24 years in the Air Force the only job I had that didn’t have 100+ days a year traveling was the year I spent remote in Korea.
I offered a follow up question did I have to sleep in a tent?
When they said no I told them I had no problem travelling.
Yeah but an Air Force “tent” is a 3-star Hotel. 😛
So what would happen to say a paratrooper who broke his legs while on an exercise in the USA or perhaps broke his back? Would he be forced to deploy or forced out because his recovery took more than a year?
“It’s purpose is to defend the Nation.” HT 2 Hondo. A whole lot has changed in the last 45 years but that part hasn’t. IMHO the only profile for non deployment would be recovering from Combat Wounds. No excuse at all for troops serving since Desert Sheild/Storm making 3-6 deployments, or more, when others have never gone at all. Again, it’s a whole different world now than it was. The troop numbers especially, but folks not wanting to go? Come on give me a break. We went where we were told to go, obeyed the lawful orders of those above us, and did the best job we were able or were allowed to do, with what we had to work with. You knew the job could become dangerous when you took it pilgrim.
This is actually good news for some of us. Personally, Was looking at getting shitcanned because of a 469 due to Crohns; which is obviously not of my own accord or the Military’s, for that matter. With this, I should be able to stay in at least until the appeals are complete for duty status due to the fact I have 17+ of Reserve service.
And yes I have been deployed (’03-Akrotiri, ’08-Kirkuk, ’11-Balad, ’16-Kuwait) although it is/was as a zoomie.
[/inb4, yeah I know I’m a pussy]
After PCSing 9 times in 9 years, after a few years in one place as a civilian my wife asked “isn’t it time we move somewhere else?”
Soon to retire? I retired 20 months after returning from deployment, not including terminal leave.