Danger comes with territory
Is DND cutting combat pay really that extreme?
Peter Worthington
The Toronto Sun
18 Apr 2013
It would seem that Department of National Defence bureaucrats want to reduce "danger pay" to soldiers serving in Afghanistan.
The "newsworthy" aspect of this report is that apparently the Prime Minister's Office has asked DND to "rethink" its plan to cut costs by trimming some $500 a month from the $1,300 or so soldiers get in danger pay for being in Afghanistan. This "rethinking" seems to imply that neither the PM nor Defence Minister Peter MacKay were alerted to the plan before it was announced. Odd--and, if true, insulting.
Sometimes one gets the feeling that DND operates as a law unto itself, knowing that ministers (and even PMs) come and go, but DND goes on forever. If ordered to do something, DND complies in its own time, and often the old minister has been replaced in the interim, thus negating the order.
The argument that Afghanistan is less dangerous now than it was, say, at this time last year, is true. Still dangerous mind you, but not as dangerous for 900 soldiers based in Kabul as it was for 2,800 soldiers in Kandahar where they were being shot at.
When coupled with their tax-free status, plus foreign service allotment, a soldier based in Afghanistan might get about $14,000 on top of his pay for his/her six-month tour. This bonanza might explain why so many soldiers have volunteered to return to Afghanistan for another tour.
There's also another consideration about danger pay.
Personally--and I think to many--whatever a soldier can get from service in a place like Afghanistan where roadside bombs are a never-ending hazard is justified.
But surely, just being a soldier, a member of the army, implies a certain willingness to risk one's life? "Danger" comes with being a soldier, and it's a choice one takes on enlistment.
Cops know they put their lives on the line (and are well paid for it); firefighters too, and people who go to sea, or do construction jobs. All face more risks than people who sell doughnuts or who work in offices.
Chopping roughly one-third off danger pay because Afghanistan is no longer as dangerous as it was does not seem extreme.
Perhaps the government should "rethink" its request that DND "rethink" its relatively modest cuts?
It would seem that danger pay would be more justified if ours was a conscript army, and people had no choice but to join if asked--like in the First or Second World Wars. (Soldiers who fought in Korea started as a special force and were all volunteers. Getting extra money for putting themselves in danger never occurred to anyone.)
Reflecting on Korea, one vet quipped: "We expected nothing, and nothing is what we got." The trouble with danger pay and no tax obligations for those serving in Afghanistan is that it raised the living standard and made it difficult to cope financially on return to Canada.
Perhaps that's one reason why so many in the Armed Forces have taken their discharge--an issue that concerns retired Col. Michel Drapeau, a professor at Ottawa University and Canada's leading expert on military law.
He notes that more than 98,000 individuals have left the Armed Forces between 2006 and 2011-- a horrendous attrition rate of 25% a year in a military totalling 60,000.
There's no convenient explanation for this, but Drapeau says: "What is known is that we are constantly losing the base, and there seems no end: 16,000 a year have to be actively recruited to replace those who leave."
Maybe "rethinking" danger pay will stop the hemorrhaging. Then again, maybe not.
