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JIM DENT

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U.S. Has a Duty to the Military

News Type: Opinion — Seeded on Sun Dec 9, 2007 12:56 PM EST

Here’s a classic story of heartless misplacement of risk.

A soldier in combat suffers debilitating wounds and is mustered out of the armed forces early. So what does the Pentagon do?

It tells him to return part of his enlistment bonus on the grounds that, because of his injuries, he failed to complete the enlistment for which he contracted.

That’s the story of Iraq veteran Jordan Fox, who was wounded in a bombing. There have reportedly been similar cases in the last few years.

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Jim Dent
Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, says it’s already Pentagon policy that enlistment bonuses for wounded combat veterans be paid in full within 30 days. The problem: The policy is not consistently implemented.

So, if it's standard policy to pay the bonuses in full, how the hell is this even possible?

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Reply#1 - Sun Dec 9, 2007 12:59 PM EST
STatWar

Bureaucracy... pure and simple. Somewhere along the lines there was a mistake made in his records and the letter was sent.

If this was a problem of this not being the standard policy there wouldn't be just a few reported cases over the last few years, with the amount of wounded from Iraq alone there would be thousands of cases of people being forced to repay their enlistment bonuses... yet this is not the case.

This so-called problem is not wide-spread, and does not need legislation to fix. Just light a fire underneath some bureaucrats butt.

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#1.1 - Sun Dec 9, 2007 1:55 PM EST
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