Injured soldiers shouldn't have to pay back part of enlistment bonus
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No comments [ Add Comment ]By Doug Gibson
Commentary
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arlier this year, former Sen. Bob Dole and former Health and Human Services Sec. Donna Shalala, chairing The President's Commission on Care for Our Nation's Wounded Warriors, discovered a nasty little rule in the Department of Defense. The rule prevents wounded veterans from collecting their full enlistment bonus.
As a result, there are soldiers who go to Iraq and Afghanistan, get wounded, come home and are later dunned by Uncle Sam for thousands of dollars of bonus money that the armed forces claims they didn't earn.
One soldier this happened to was former Marine Spc. Robert Kaminski. He lost a leg earlier this year in Iraq when his convoy ran over an IED in Iraq. After he got home, the military told Kaminiski to pay back some of his enlistment bonus because he had not finished his term of enlistment.
This has happened to other wounded soldiers. Commentator Laura Ingraham recently interviewed 20-year-old Jordan Fox, badly injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq. Fox recently received a letter from the Pentagon, demanding almost $3,000 of his bonus be returned.
It is difficult to understand who would make a rule forcing badly wounded soldiers to return enlistment bonuses because shrapnel injured their bodies prior to an enlistment expiration date. This had to be a group decision. Bureaucracies have no heart. (The authors of this rule should be assigned to a group in Iraq or Afghanistan where combat is hottest and offered a rolling bonus that reaches full appreciation in two years, 26 battles or death.)
Fortunately, we have a U.S. Congress, comprised of individual humans with hearts. HR 3793, the Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act of 2007, sponsored by Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., has been introduced. The act requires the secretary of defense "to continue to pay to a member of the Armed Forces who is retired or separated from the Armed Forces due to a combat-related injury certain bonuses that the member was entitled to before the retirement or separation and would continue to be entitled to if the member was not retired or separated."
That's quite a mouthful, but what it means is soldiers wounded in battle and later harassed by military duns for their bonus money will get relief.
The act was introduced on Oct. 10. It was referred to the House Armed Services Committee and later to the Subcommittee on Military Personnel. Rep. Rob Bishop sits on the Armed Services Committee. If you want to let him know how you feel about HR 3793, you can go to his Web site at http://robbishop.house.gov/ and either e-mail him with your opinion (if you live in the 1st Congressional District) or get information to write or call his office. (A phone call to Bishop's press office requesting comment was not returned.)
Most bills die in committee. But HR 3793 has a good chance to make it. It already has more than half of the House of Representatives listed as co-sponsors. Most sponsors are Democrats, including Utah Rep. Jim Matheson. A smattering of Republicans are listed as co-sponsors. The partisan edge to co-sponsors has more to do with the icy relations between competing parties in Congress rather than any opposition.
Still, it would be nice to see more than 400 co-sponsors to the Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act of 2007, which would correct a dreadful wrong. Congress could use the bipartisanship effort; its current approval numbers are abysmal -- 20 percent according to this week's Gallup poll.
Our soldiers are facing pure evil. If captured, they will be tortured to death. Their efforts are keeping us safe here. Please contact your national legislators and make sure HR 3793 becomes law. Our soldiers deserve respect beyond combat, especially from the armed forces that recruited them.
Gibson is the Standard-Examiner's assistant editorial page editor. He can be reached at dgibson@standard.net.
