ARLINGTON, Va., - Thousands of Army National  Guard Soldiers, including those who have retired or separated, have till Oct.  28 to apply for Post Deployment Mobilization Respite Absence (PDMRA)  compensation for serving long, overseas deployments. 
“We’ve got about 14,000 eligible Soldiers,” said Army  Col. Dennis Chapman, chief of Personnel and Policy for the Army National Guard.  “About two-thirds of those are still in service, and we’ve got packets  submitted for about 87 percent of the Soldiers that are still in service.”
There are about 5,000 former Guard Soldiers that are  eligible for the benefit, said Chapman, adding that packets have been received  for about 20 percent of those no longer serving. 
“So, the real challenge is reaching those out of  service,” he said. 
The Department of Defense developed PDMRA for  servicemembers who were deployed longer than established dwell ratios. For  reserve component servicemembers that dwell ratio is one year deployed for  every five years at home station. 
“If you have a tour ending today, you look back 72 months  and if you were (mobilized) for more than 12 months out of that 72 months, you  may be eligible for PDMRA days,” said Chapman.
Initially, PDMRA allowed Soldiers to earn additional  administrative leave days for the additional time spent deployed. However,  Soldiers must be in a Title 10 status to use those leave days. That meant that  once Army Guard Soldiers returned to Title 32 status, they were ineligible to  use those days, said Chapman.
As a stop gap measure the policy was revised and allowed  eligible Soldiers to apply those leave days to their next deployment. But for  those who left the service or don’t deploy again, that effectively meant they  couldn’t take advantage of the benefit, said Chapman. 
“Congress passed a law in the most recent National  Defense Authorization Act, authorizing the services to pay Soldiers at a rate  of up to $200 a day for any PDMRA days they earned … but were not able to  take,” said Chapman. 
Primarily, those who may have earned days under the  program, but were not able to use them, are those Guard Soldiers serving on  active duty between the signing of the initial policy on Jan. 19, 2007, and  when implementation guidelines were published by the Army on Aug. 18, 2007,  said Chapman. 
However, other laws and policies may affect a Soldier’s  eligibility. 
Typically, a Guard Soldier who serves longer than 12  months during the most recent 72 months gets one PDMRA day for each additional  month or fraction of a month. The number of PDMRA days awarded increases after  18 months and again after 24 months served.  
On average, those who are eligible receive credit for  about 28 days, which translates to more than $5,000, said Chapman. And those  who feel they may be eligible are urged to contact their unit leadership or  their state military pay officer.
“A Soldier cannot figure this out themselves,” he said.  “All they can figure out is that they might be due. So, if you fall under the  parameters, it may be good to check with the military pay officer in your  state.”