Rules on Political Activities for Airmen
A popular misconception about service members is they cannot participate in political activities. However, Airmen can vote and express personal opinions on political candidates and issues. In most cases, they can sign petitions and write letters to the editor as a private citizen and they can contribute to political organizations or committees favoring a particular candidate or slate of candidates. They can also attend political meetings or rallies as a spectator or join associations and attend meetings when not in uniform and not on duty. However, Airmen cannot serve in an official capacity as part of a partisan club, organization or rally. If you have questions, contact your local Staff Judge Advocate.

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Traveling With TRICARE
Going out of town? Look here for info on how to use your TRICARE health care benefit while you are away from home. Information on Emergency Care, Traveling within the U.S. and Traveling Overseas can be found here.

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Free SAT-ACT Software for Military Families
For the second year, a group of NFL, NFL Europe, AFL and CFL football players have sponsored several million dollars worth of $199 SAT and ACT test prep programs to every family in the U.S. Military (all branches-active or retired). Specifically, the sponsorship allows any military person (active or retired) to request as many programs as they need for the students in their lives. The Department of Defense has created a secure website to quickly confirm a person's military status. Personnel can access the confirmation and request pages through several military related associations and organizations, including: (http://www.militaryhomefront.dod.mil/) Military Home Front website for families, offers access to the forms to confirm military status and process the order. Programs ship to domestic U.S. addresses and APO addresses. The sponsorship covers the regular purchase price of $199 and the family pays only the S&H. To learn more about the program and the NFL/CFL players who are providing this offer visit: (http://sat.eknowledge.com/military.asp) eknowledge.com.

 

Some Payments Ruled Tax-Free
Payments under the Veterans Affairs Department's compensated work therapy program are no longer are taxable, and disabled veterans who paid tax on these benefits in the past three years now can claim refunds, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said recently. Recipients of the payments will no longer receive a Form 1099 from Veterans Affairs. More than 19,000 veterans received compensated work therapy in Fiscal Year 2007. The program provides assistance to veterans unable to work and support themselves.

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Income Tax Statements Coming
Military service members, military retirees and annuitants, and federal civilian employees paid by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) can expect to receive their 2007 tax statements beginning in December, 2007. DFAS customers with (https://mypay.dfas.mil/mypay.aspx) myPay access will be able to retrieve their tax statements electronically up to two weeks sooner than those relying on regular mail delivery. Tax statements available through myPay are approved for use by the IRS. Customers who wish to open a myPay account can do so on the (https://mypay.dfas.mil/mypay.aspx) myPay website.

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Families Gain New Attention & Support
Grieving military families will gain new attention and support from bereavement professionals, thanks to a new Special Interest Group focused on loss in the military, organized within the National Association for Death Education & Counseling and Chaired by the (http://www.taps.org/) Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS). To join the Military Special Interest Group within ADEC, you must be a member of the organization. For more information about ADEC or to join, go to (http://www.adec.org/). More information about TAPS can be found at: (http://www.taps.org/) or by calling the toll-free crisis line at 800.959.TAPS.

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Wounded Warrior Pay Support Team
The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) has a team devoted to serving the needs of wounded warriors. Depending on a service member's personal situation, several entitlements may be starting, changing, or stopped during transition between the deployment and medical treatment. The Wounded Warrior Pay Support Team's mission is to provide accurate, real-time financial support to service members who are medically evacuated as a result of wounds, disease, or injury incurred while serving in a combat zone. Additionally, provide the critical human dimension of customer service to Wounded Warriors. Visit the (http://www.dfas.mil/militarypay/woundedwarriorpay.html) DFAS Wounded Warrior Pay website to learn more.

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Army Issues Family Safety Kit
The U.S. Army Combat Readiness/Safety Center (USACRC) has issued its new Redeployment Family Engagement Kit, which features tools that family members can use to engage their loved ones in best safety practices in order to help protect them. The kit includes six tools for post-deployment best safety practices, and many of the safety practices take little time and effort to do. For more information about the Family Engagement Kit, including downloading the kit, visit the (https://crc.army.mil/familyengagement) USACRC website.

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Navy Family Handbook Now Available
Naval service family members may now obtain a handbook to prepare for a variety of natural or man-made disasters. This handbook, entitled "Are You Ready? Guidelines for Navy Family Emergency Preparedness" is being published and distributed by Naval Services Family Line. Vital information is included in the handbook to ensure families are prepared as their own first responders. Obtain a (http://www.lifelines.navy.mil/LifeLines/MilitaryLife/LIFE_005186) copy of the handbook for your family or family members within your command or call Family Line at 1-877-673-7773. Naval Services Family Line is a volunteer, non-profit organization of Naval service spouses who are dedicated to providing educational material and other resources to families of servicemembers.

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Suicide Hot Line Begins Operations
The Department of Veterans Affairs national suicide prevention hot line for veterans has begun operations. The toll-free hot line number is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). VA's hot line will be staffed by mental health professionals in Canandaigua, N.Y. who will take toll-free calls from across the country and work closely with local VA mental-health providers to help callers.

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Army's Hot Line Aids Soldiers, Families
The Army's four-month-old, highly successful, "Wounded Soldier and Family Hot Line" provides a more direct way for wounded soldiers and their families to obtain information for medical issues. Callers' issues are distributed to subject-matter experts for resolution. The hotline staff later contacts callers to ensure they have been helped. The hot line operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Army's Wounded Soldier and Family Hot Line can be accessed at 1-800-984-8523.

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Army Extends Support to Families
Families of deceased active-duty Soldiers can receive an extended level of support from it long-term care program, the Army Long Term Family Case Management program. The program provides long-term support to families of fallen Soldiers by helping them through the often painful and sometimes arduous steps toward receiving benefits and various other types of support. The program also follows congressional legislation that pertains to benefits programs offered to families of deceased Soldiers and posts the information on its website (http://www.altfcm.army.mil). You can also call the Long Term Family Case Management support coordinator at 1-866-272-5841.

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Air Force Palace HART Program
The Air Force Palace HART - Helping Airmen Recover Together - program provides individualized personal support Airmen with combat-related illnesses or injuries resulting from operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. The program provides a support system that includes (1) the assignment of a family liaison officer through all phases of the process; (2) expanded transition assistance; (3) consultation and analysis for potential temporary duty retirements list, benefits and assistance with initial filing of Department of Veterans Affairs disability claims; (4) extended five-year case management follow-up; and (5) employment placement assistance and counseling.

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South Carolina Program Helps Veterans
The Homefront Readiness Program sponsored by the Fast Forward Community Technology Center, in Columbia, S.C., provides access to technology and technology education to people who might not otherwise have access. The group has also recently created a program to provide veterans with tools necessary to successfully transition into civilian employment. Veterans meet with a program director to decide on a course of action, which can include anything from getting help with technology and job skills to networking. For more information, visit the (http://www.communitydiaries.org/sc/columbia/home-front-readiness/) Fast Forward Community Technology Center Homefront Readiness website.

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DoD Transition Assistance Program Goes Online
TURBOTAP is an easy to use, interactive Web portal that provides life-long support to separating military service members (Active Duty, Guard and Reserve) and their families. It is a single source starting point for accessing key resources available for service members transitioning out of the military at any point in their military career. (http://www.turbotap.org/) Assistance to officers is still available at the Military Officers Association of America (http://www.moaa.org) and is a top quality resource for officers.

TurboTAP features include:

Read the (http://www.transitionassistanceprogram.com/portal/transition/resources/press/Fact_Sheet) TurboTAP fact sheet to learn more about this new online transition assistance tool.

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Patriot Express Loan Program
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is taking steps to increase awareness of its new Patriot Express Loan program. Patriot Express is designed specifically for veterans, reservists, members of the National Guard, and their spouses, who want to start or expand a small business. Since its launch six months ago, the program produced more than 670 SBA-guaranteed loans with an average loan amount of nearly $101,000. The initiative builds upon the counseling assistance and procurement support the SBA provides each year to more than 100,000 veterans, service-disabled veterans and Reserve members. For more information, visit the (https://www.sba.gov/patriotexpress) Patriot Express website.

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Help Our Troops Call Home
The "Help Our Troops Call Home" program keeps telecommunication costs low for troops far from home. Any American can help keep military families connected this holiday season by sending Global Prepaid Phone cards to either individual designated servicemembers or to "any servicemember." To place an order, either log on to the (http://www.aafes.org/) Army and Air Force Exchange Service's website or call 1-800-527-2345

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MILITARY Here's proof that America supports you.
With the help of one online program, American businesses, organizations, and individuals can reassure servicemembers they have support back home. One DoD effort, the America Supports You (ASY) program, deserves recognition for helping to assure servicemembers and their families the nation stands behind them.

Servicemembers who visit www.americasupportsyou.mil come away with a sense of the depth and breadth of the programs to help them through long deployments, injuries, and the trials of service life in wartime.

Further providing proof of the nation’s support, the Web site also has become a conduit for more individuals, nonprofit organizations, and businesses to support servicemembers and their families. The site publishes articles about new initiatives launched by some of the 280 nonprofit “home front groups” and 35 corporations committed to helping servicemembers’ families.

There are links to nonprofit groups and to offers of donated computers, frequent-flier miles, gift certificates, and phone cards. Spouses and parents can arrange for care packages, cards, and letters to be sent to deployed loved ones. Visitors to the Web site can post messages of support to troops and their families and read the responses from troops.

ASY is the brainchild of Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Public Liaison and Internal Communications. Her office launched the program in November 2004 after she and other officials began hearing deployed forces ask whether the nation still supported them. Barber says she was disturbed to hear such doubts. “In my community outreach role, I was seeing wonderful things happening. I would hear about churches holding bakeoffs to send to the troops. Organizations and companies were doing great things. So I realized there was a very big disconnect in our country. We had people doing great things for the troops but nobody telling [the troops] about [them],” she says.

ASY “connects the dots,” she says. The goal was to construct a “national platform” on the Internet that billboards for troops and their families the actions being taken on their behalf. The Web site “gives voice … to all of these wonderful people of all ages who do so much for our military community,” says Barber. Using the Internet, she says, ensures “no matter where our military members are, they would see and hear this one message over and over again, loud and clear: America supports you.”

Though ASY seeks to reassure troops and their families, it also serves to deepen involvement by individuals, nonprofit organizations, and businesses who want to add their support or begin their own initiatives to help servicemembers.
“What’s so fascinating and great about America Supports You is that it was built to be agile,” says Barber. “For the first time in the history of [DoD], when terrific people call saying, ‘What can I do to support the troops?’ we can send them to the America Supports You Web site, and they can choose to connect to one of 280 nonprofit groups doing wonderful things for our troops and our families.”

ASY now is “the connector program for [DoD]” making it “really easy for people to find ways to support our troops” regardless of how busy they are in their own lives. They can help send the teenaged children of deployed servicemembers to summer camp, donate money to help pay for tutors for the children of mobilized Guard and Reserve members, help buy and refurbish homes for severely wounded veterans, and much more.

The most popular goal for individual Americans continues to be sending care packages, cards, and letters to deployed personnel.

According to Barber, she took advantage of such a link when her husband, Linden, an Army Reserve JAG officer, was deployed to Iraq. “This one group popped up and said, ‘Let us send care packages to your spouse.’ So I wrote in [and] gave them my husband’s address. Next thing I know, he gets a neat care package with cards from a bunch of third graders.”

Barber says it’s impossible not to be moved by the comments posted on the ASY Web site.

“What keeps me going every day [is] … the e-mails the troops are sending back about how much the support means to them. It’s just amazing.” Check out the America Supports You web site http://www.americasupportsyou.mil and see it for yourself.

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Navy Implements Reservation System
Beginning in October 2007, Sailors and their families can make official and Space "A" lodging reservations online for Navy Gateway Inns and Suites located in the metro San Diego area and Guam. The Navy is implementing an online lodging system. Once the system is complete, travelers will be able to go online at the (http://www.dodlodging.net/) Air Force and Navy DoD Lodging Net website to book their official lodging reservations up to a year in advance. Effective Nov. 15, 2007, the Navy's reservations call center can be reached toll-free at 1-877-782-4681. For information about eligibility, visit the "policies and standards" pages at the (http://www.dodlodging.net/) Air Force and Navy DoD Lodging Net website.

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Operation Care Package Supports Troops
The United Service Organization's (USO) Operation Care Package delivers 'care packages' to members of the U.S. Armed Forces deployed around the world to show them they have not been forgotten and to provide a "touch of home." The care packages include a pre-paid international phone card, a deck of playing cards, a disposable camera, a hacky-sack, an edition of Reader's Digest and various snacks. With a donation of $25 you can sponsor a care package and include a personal message of support and encouragement. For more information, visit the (http://www.usocares.org) USO's Operation Care Package website.

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Postal Service Offers Military Discount
If you send a package to a servicemember after March 3, 2008, you can take advantage of the new flat-rate box from the Postal Service that is 50 percent larger and delivered for $10.95 to any APO/FPO address, which is $2 less than for domestic destinations. The new priority mail large flat-rate box (12" x 12" x 5-1/2" or 800 cubic inches) will be available in post offices nationwide beginning March 3, 2008, but customers can begin ordering them Feb. 20, 2008 at the United States Postal Service website at (http://shop.usps.com/) usps.com/supplies or by calling 800-610-8734.

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Free USPS Packaging for Family and Friends of Service members
The United States Postal Service is providing military family members and friends with packaging materials to send packages to service members. Call 1 (800) 610-8734, and select option #1, then #1 again, and ask for the "Military pack." Eight boxes, tape, packaging materials, and labels will be mailed to those who call. They will also provide an I.D. number to re-order. Please allow four to 10 days to receive the materials. Take advantage of this great opportunity to show support to your loved ones overseas!

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Operation Give a Hug
Operation Give a Hug provides children of deployed parents a special doll with a photo of the deployed parent on the face of the doll. The program is sponsored by The Kiwanis Club of Greater Tacoma Foundation located in Tacoma, Wash. The program has distributed more than 14,000 dolls through family readiness groups, family liaison officers, school counselors, casualty assistance officers, Fort Lewis Fisher House, and TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors). http://www.operationgiveahug.org

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Strength for Service
Strength for Service provides the daily devotional book "Strength for Service" for military personnel. Since "Strength for Service's" re-release in 2002, the book has been distributed to 250,000 people of all denominations including troops deploying to the Middle East and caring for the wounded. For more information, visit the http://www.strengthforservice.org/index.html website.

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Hire a Hero
An online nonprofit group, Hire a Hero, is helping servicemembers preparing to transition to the civilian work world connect with solid job opportunities. The organization currently has 5,000 former servicemembers signed up for help with job hunting. Participants are asked to complete a profile about their situation -- for example, what skills they have, how close they are to separating, and where they hope to live once they've left the military. Those who register with Hire a Hero also can search and apply for jobs with "military-friendly employers" on the website. For more information, visit the (http://www.hireahero.org) Hire a Hero website.

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New Teacher Site Available
Servicemembers and spouses who are employed or interested in teaching have a new online resource, www.TheApple.com. TheApple provides free resources to teachers of all ages and stages, including daily news, job listings, lesson plans, articles, education opportunities and career networking. Membership at TheApple is free.

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Get Your Affairs in Order with MOAA's Free Personal Affairs Planning Publication
You asked for it, you got it. MOAA's Personal Affairs Workbook, which is free for members, now can be completed through interactive computer-based worksheets. Keep your affairs in order and help protect your military benefits for your family members. Log in now and get started!

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Retiree Payment Procedures
Retired service members, except those recalled to active duty and entitled to active duty pay and allowances, and those who elect to waive all their pay in favor of VA compensation or civil service annuity, will have their retired pay electronically transferred to their financial institution on the first business day of each month. The following is a summary of what you need to know about retired pay: