The overriding goal of AMS is to support a national defense that will protect the security of the United States.

AMS represents the interests of members of the Uniformed Services in Congress, at the White House, the Veterans Administration, and the Department of Defense. We educate the public and members of Congress about the Uniformed Services and their most important asset, its people.

We monitor proposed legislation and we lobby and educate members of Congress and Pentagon officials on behalf of our members. We give voice to our members’ concerns about military pay, health care, pension and disability, survivor benefits, education, housing, child care, and other quality-of-life programs.

Force Management

AMS supports a defense budget that will provide modern and sufficient equipment so that our military personnel can safely and effectively accomplish their mission. Further, we support increasing active duty, Guard and Reserve force sizes (end strength) to match mission.

Active Duty, Reserve Force, and Family Issues

AMS supports military pay and compensation policies to attain and maintain the personnel skills that will allow the United States to meet its strategic goals. This includes compensation, benefits, quality of life, and other instruments to recruit, retain, and support high-quality people. It also includes providing service members and their dependents high-quality, affordable health care. We support initiatives to:

  • Sustain active duty, Guard and Reserve force sizes to meet mission requirements
  • Sustain military pay comparability with private sector
  • Protect currently serving and retiree benefits against significant degradation based on sequestration’s arbitrary cuts
  • Credit all post-9/11 active duty service toward Guard/Reserve early retirement
  • Restore tax deduction for reservists’ out-of-pocket expenses for military travel of 50 miles or more
  • Create new incentives for employers to hire and retain drilling Guard/Reserve members
  • Provide incentives for employers/government/contractors to hire military spouses
  • Protect funding for commissary/exchange, dependent schools and family support programs
  • Improve access to affordable child care
  • Require better education on serious financial disadvantages of the REDUX retirement option
  • Improve professional licensure transferability for service members and military spouses

Health Care Issues

  • Avert 27% Medicare/TRICARE payment cut and fix statutory formula to improve access to care
  • Protect against disproportional increases in TRICARE fees
  • Oppose enrollment fee for TRICARE For Life or curtailment of TFL coverage
  • Allow three years of active-duty-level TRICARE coverage for disability retirees and families
  • Improve seamless transition and protect Defense and VA health benefits support systems and budgets
  • Expand TRICARE coverage for Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) for active and retired members of the uniformed services

Retirement and Survivor Issues

  • Oppose military benefit changes that are inconsistent with service career sacrifices
  • Preserve full-inflation cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs)
  • End deduction of VA disability compensation from military retired pay
  • End deduction of VA survivor benefits (DIC) from military Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) annuities
  • Implement a more equitable military disability retirement system
  • Restore VA DIC compensation for qualifying survivors who remarry after age 55
  • Reform the SBP calculation for a reservist who dies performing IDT as for active duty deaths
  • Authorize survivors to retain a deceased retiree’s full final-month retired pay
  • Authorize SBP annuities to be paid to Special Needs Trusts for permanently disabled children
  • Reform the Uniformed Services Former Spouse Protection Act (USFSPA)
  • Authorize Space-A travel for ‘gray area’ Guard and Reserve retirees and qualifying survivors

Veterans and Other Issues

  • Improve quality, efficiency, transparency, and timeliness of the VA claims-processing system
  • Establish Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits for surviving spouses of Iraq and Afghanistan wars
  • Improve VA health services and access for women veterans
  • Authorize pre-tax payment of health, dental and long-term care premiums
  • Prevent disproportional Social Security and/or Medicare penalties for any population segment