Tom Maguire notes (“Combat Operations Are Over In Iraq; Combat Pay Is Not“) that the SECDEF has assured our soldiers in Iraq that the change in mission will not mean that they lose combat pay, saying that they’d get it so long as they were still in danger of getting killed by IEDs and snipers.
In fact, what most soldiers call “combat pay” is technically “Hostile Fire/Imminent Danger Pay.”
A member of a uniformed service may be entitled to Hostile Fire and Imminent Danger pay at the rate of $225 for any month in which he/she was entitled to basic pay and in which he/she was:
- Subject to hostile fire or explosion of hostile mines;
- On duty in an area in which he was in imminent danger of being exposed to hostile fire or explosion of hostile mines and in which, during the period he was on duty in that area, other members of the uniformed services were subject to hostile fire or explosion of hostile mines;
- Killed, injured, or wounded by hostile fire, explosion of a hostile mine, or any other hostile action; or
- On duty in a foreign area in which he was subject to the threat of physical harm or imminent danger on the basis of civil insurrection, civil war, terrorism, or wartime conditions.
Soldiers assigned to duty in places like Kosovo, Kenya, Liberia, and Sudan are eligible.
