Troops in Parts of Japan to Receive Hardship Pay

WASHINGTON, April 3, 2011 — Ser­vice mem­bers in cer­tain pre­fec­tures of Japan will receive hard­ship duty pay effec­tive April 1, Defense Depart­ment offi­cials announced.
Ser­vice mem­bers will receive $50 hard­ship duty pay per month if they are based in the Tokyo Cap­i­tal Region and the pre­fec­tures of Aichi, Kana­gawa, Aki­ta, Aomori, Chi­ba, Fukushi­ma, Gun­ma, Ibara­ki, Iwate, Miya­gi, Nagano, Niiga­ta, Saita­ma, Shi­zou­ka, Tochi­gi, Yam­a­ga­ta and Yamanashi.

“The des­ig­na­tion is in recog­ni­tion of the hard­ships caused by the March 11, 2011, earth­quake, the tsuna­mi that fol­lowed and issues relat­ed to Japan nuclear reac­tors,” accord­ing to a let­ter signed by Lynn C. Simp­son, act­ing prin­ci­ple deputy under­sec­re­tary of defense for per­son­nel and readi­ness. The let­ter went to the sec­re­taries of the Army, Navy and Air Force and to the direc­tor of the Defense Finance and Account­ing Service. 

Ser­vice mem­bers who are per­ma­nent­ly assigned to the des­ig­nat­ed loca­tions are eli­gi­ble for the pay. Ser­vice mem­bers who are on tem­po­rary duty to the spec­i­fied pre­fec­tures in sup­port of Oper­a­tion Tomodachi for longer than 30 days also will receive the pay. Those aboard ship are not eligible. 

The pay is addi­tion­al com­pen­sa­tion paid to ser­vice mem­bers in recog­ni­tion of the hard­ships asso­ci­at­ed with duty assign­ments in des­ig­nat­ed locations. 

Those eli­gi­ble will receive the pay auto­mat­i­cal­ly. Ser­vice mem­bers do not need to apply. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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