EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif -- Approximately 100 Army National Guard troops from the 1st Battalion/144th Field Artillery arrived to supplement the 95th Security Forces Squadron (SFS) in maintaining base security. Heavy overseas deployment taskings had led to a significant drawdown on SFS personnel. The Army National Guard deployed to Edwards for a period up to one year.
The existing processes and controls used to provide pay and allowances to mobilized Army Guard personnel are so cumbersome and complex that neither DOD nor, more importantly, the mobilized Army Guard soldiers could be reasonably assured of timely and accurate payroll payments. Weaknesses in these processes and controls resulted in over- and underpayments and late active duty payments and, in some cases, largely erroneous debt assessments to mobilized Army Guard personnel. The end result of these pay problems is to severely constrain DOD’s ability to provide active duty pay to these personnel, many of whom were risking their lives in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, these pay problems have had a profound financial impact on individual soldiers and their families. For example, many soldiers and their families were required to spend considerable time, sometimes while the soldiers were deployed in remote, combat environments overseas, seeking corrections to active duty pays.