YourVoice.Now Summary
Your MoneyIf a combat injury ended your service early, you would keep your full retired pay and your VA disability pay.
Your Money
Today a veteran medically retired for a combat injury gives up a dollar of retired pay for each dollar of VA pay. That trade would stop. No minimum years of service would apply.
A medical retirement can pay more than a normal one based on years served. Today that extra amount is still cut when VA disability pay starts. Veterans with 20 or more years and a combat-related injury would keep it.
Combat-Related Special Compensation is a second, separate monthly payment. Today retired pay is cut by VA pay first, and this payment tops it back up to a cap. The cut would end. The cap would stay.
More about this bill
If you were medically retired from the military for a combat injury, your monthly income could go up. Today your military retired pay drops by a dollar for each dollar of VA disability pay. This bill would end that trade. You would draw both checks in full. The test would be whether the injury is combat-related, not how long you served. Veterans who draw Combat-Related Special Compensation, a separate monthly payment, would get the same fix. Their retired pay would no longer be cut first. Career medical retirees would also keep the extra pay that a disability rating adds. The change would start the first day of the first month after the bill becomes law. Medical retirees whose injury is not combat-related would see no change.
Congressional Summary
Major Richard Star ActThis bill allows a veteran with a combat-related disability to receive retirement pay, without reduction, concurrently with their disability compensation. This includes veterans with a combat-related disability and fewer than 20 years of creditable service. (Currently, veterans who receive combat-related special compensation and retirement pay are subject to an offset in retirement pay for concurrent receipt of such benefits.)
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- Senate
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in Senate
- Action Date
- 2025-03-13
- Date Added
- 2026-09-02
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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