Looking at just the last four years, the executive and legislative branches have done pretty well by military pay raises. From 2000 to 2003, the average servicemember saw a cumulative 23.8 percent pay raise versus the average American's 16 percent raise during 
that same period.

But those raises weren't a gift. The government was forced into them because two decades of systematically capping military raises below private sector pay growth left a 13.5 percent pay gap that caused a retention crisis in the late 1990s. So far, those four 
years of plus-ups have made up a little more than half the gap.

If you think Congress learned a lesson from that, consider two things. First, years of pay caps generated a similar retention crisis in the late 1970s that required two double-digit raises to restore comparability in 1982 -- and pay caps were resumed almost immediately thereafter.

Second, Congress still hasn't changed the underlying law that requires capping military raises one-half percentage point per year below the average American's. The interim law  requiring the plus-ups will expire in two more years.

Thanks to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the Senate version of the FY 2004 National Defense Authorization Act would establish the military pay comparability standard into permanent law. That would seem a no-brainer to anyone who has the sense to learn from two disastrous prior experiences. However, it remains to be seen whether House leaders will share that sense and agree to the Senate-proposed change.

There can be few people left in America who are insensitive to the burdens being borne by our men and women in uniform, including those in the National Guard and Reserves. 
Surely, it's not too much to ask that their annual pay raises -- as measured by the Employment Cost Index (ECI) -- at least match the average raise of the citizens they're sacrificing so much to protect.

Col. Steve Strobridge, USAF-Ret., director of MOAA government relations