While on Camp Ripley May 21, 2021 North Dakota National Guard MPs of the 131st Military Police Battalion and 191st Military Police Company took part in a joint training exercise with UH-72 Lakota Air Ambulances of the 376th Aviation Regiment Nebraska National Guard. (Minnesota National Guard photo by Mr. Anthony Housey)
(Michael Achterling – North Dakota Monitor) – North Dakota’s active duty service members and National Guard soldiers will see pay increases and funding for programs, equipment and runway maintenance next year through the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act.
The $885 billion defense bill, approved by the Senate Wednesday and the House last week, will give junior enlisted service members a 14.5% increase in base pay and all service members a 4.5% pay increase.
“And that’s important because we have a recruiting challenge, we need to be able to recruit these people and providing a salary increase goes a long way to both recruit and keep our service members,” North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer said in a statement.
Cramer and Sen. John Hoeven, both Republicans, voted in favor of the bill.
The new defense budget also provides $1.9 million for planning, design and maintenance of the runway at the Grand Forks Air Force Base, a news release from Cramer’s office said.
Two Grand Forks companies will receive more than $5.5 million for continued development of corrosion resistant coatings and unmanned aerial vehicle technology.
The Minot Air Force Base will receive part of $3.9 billion in funding for the continued modernization of the country’s nuclear arsenal as it shifts from Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles to the Sentinel missile system.
The bill also contains $10 million to support the sustainability and modernization of UH-72 Lakota helicopters. North Dakota National Guard soldiers use those aircraft for search and rescue, reconnaissance, medical evacuations and disaster response missions, among others.
At the Space Force Station in Cavalier, $5 million was authorized through the bill to update one of the base’s radar systems that can track more than half of all Earth-orbiting objects. It also can monitor intercontinental and sea-based missile threats.
“As our nation faces new and growing threats, whether from the nuclear ambitions of our adversaries or the misuse of unmanned aircraft, we need to properly equip and support our men and women in uniform,” Hoeven said in a statement. “That’s exactly what we’ve worked to accomplish with this year’s defense authorization bill.”
The legislation also contains a provision that prohibits military health insurance from covering the children of service members for “medical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria that could result in sterilization.”
The bill now goes to President Joe Biden’s desk.
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