Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC) under twenty

• There are over 180,000 retirees who left the service with under twenty years and they are excluded from CRSC eligibility
• Congressman Gus Bilirakis (R) FL (HR 89) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) NV (S439) introduced legislation expanding CRSC to those who were medically retired with less than 20 years of service.
• With this timely initiative, the same CRSC rules will soon apply for all Chapter 61 retirees, regardless of years of service.
• With wounded Veterans streaming out of the services with fewer benefits than many others, this bill has top support from The Military Coalition and with some in the Administration
• About 28,000, who are forced to leave the Service early qualify for CRSC, at a cost of about $130M each year.
• This legislation is poised as the most likely to pass at the end of the day in this year’s Defense Authorization Bill. It has good support within the Service leadership and with all the service CRSC offices.
• Recommendation: The Defense Authorization Committees should expand Combat Related Special Compensation to members who were medically compelled to retire short of 20 years of service solely because of their combat-incurred disabilities, as envisioned in H.R. 89. This legislation would protect service-based retired pay (2.5% of high-three years` average basic pay times years of service) from being affected by the disability offset. It would avoid the ``all or nothing`` inequity of the current 20-year threshold, while recognizing that retired pay for those with few years of service is almost all for disability rather than for service and therefore still subject to the VA offset.

Support: CRSC Under twenty has some support with the Services and the leverage for combat-disabled is high. Recently, many wounded Warriors from Iraq and Afghanistan have started to ask if they can apply for this benefit.