Wounded Vet Told To Pay Back Bonus
November 22nd, 2007 . by TexasFred(CBS) Jordan Fox received a $10,000 signing bonus when he joined the Army. The Mt. Lebanon man served his country in Iraq, where as a sniper he survived machine gun battles and a roadside bomb that knocked him unconscious and blinded him in his right eye.
The injury forced the military to send him home. A few weeks later, Fox received a bill from the Department of Defense, saying he owes the military nearly $3,000 from his original enlistment bonus because he couldn’t fulfill three months of his commitment.
“I tried to do my best and serve my country and unfortunately I was hurt in the process and now they’re telling me that they want their money back,” Fox told CBS station KDKA-TV.
This is apparently not an isolated bureaucratic foul-up. The military is allegedly demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.
To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses – up to $30,000 in some cases. Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.
Full Story Here:
Wounded Vet Told To Pay Back Bonus
Yes, it has been resolved, but I have to ask, what in the hell motivated the DoD to even TRY and pull this travesty off in the 1st place??
As the article says, this isn’t an isolated incident, who is running the DoD?? A bunch of idiots?? Ebenezer Scrooge before the transformation?? These men and women have given their ALL for the U.S. military, this nation and her people, even it this was a mistake and not done intentionally, it is the most disgusting thing imaginable…
“We have seen where the problems have been made [in] the system,” Major Nathan Banks told Griffin. Banks said the military was working to “make a wrong a right.”
But the Pentagon refused comment on allegations that thousands of other soldiers just sent home wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan will receive these sorts of bills.
George Bush will spend BILLIONS of OUR tax dollars on Iraq and it’s people but the DoD and V.A. aren’t giving OUR troops the best treatment available, they dun them for repayment of enlistment bonuses, and yes, it’s a mistake, and yes, the DoD is going to make it right but it NEVER should have happened at all, our troops that are injured and disabled in combat deserve all the money they received as bonuses and they deserve the very finest medical care this nation has to offer…
Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., told the station that he has proposed a bill that would guarantee soldiers receive full benefit of bonuses.
“Hard as it may be to believe, the Department of Defense has been denying injured servicemen and women the bonuses that they qualified for,” Altmire said at a press conference last month for H.R. 3793.
It’s not hard to believe at all, our veterans and active troops have always received the crappy end of the stick, for as long as there have been veterans and active troops, and it’s time to stop that poor treatment, suppose no one wanted to serve the USA because they were afraid that this is how they would be treated??
It could happen you know…
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Pretty damn sad, and in recent news we are handing out money, and considerable amounts of it to would be insurgents, or maybe they are insurgents to buy them back and to keep them from being sand nigger ‘mercenaries’ in order to feed their families, etc.
And the fact that this war has become beyond expensive, the DoD looking for ways to recoup money and recycle it back into the war. This is freakin’ insane.
If our government don’t pull their heads out of their asses on both sides of the aisle then that may very well be the case, and it’s quite reasonable to believe that it’s having an effect now on our young men and women that do consider joining then rethink it based on such things as this.
Believe me when I say that GW Bush, the SecDef or any senior officers never even knew about this. It was most likely some low ranking admin specialist who was following regulations that sent the letter out. They probably never knew the circumstances. All they knew was that a soldier who got a bonus didn’t fulfill a commitment and a letter was generated. They most likely never knew the circumstances as to why.
Believe it or not, their are people in the military who will get a signing bonus and then do all they can to get out of their commitment while keeping the bonus. I’ve dealt with them in my career and they are the reason for these type of regulations and guidelines.
Fortunately this soldier brought this to light and now senior personnel will look into this and make sure that each case is properly reviewed before these letters are sent out.
Maybe so Bob, but I wouldn’t put it past em either… In any case, it’s pure bullshit for a combat injured troop to be done this way, the FAKERS on the other hand, they can hang those bastards for all I care…
If you choose to leave then I am all for the military wanting it back.
Now if you have done nothing to make the military refuse your service and you get dismissed by them then you should be able to keep it.
This person (and probably many more) has done everything asked and would probably continue to serve in some capacity if able. This is the ultimate insult for thier level of service.
Under no circumstances should a wounded veteran be made to pay this back. These courageous men and women are fighting for our country and to have them treated in this manner is absurd!
That being said, I do agree with BobF that there are some unscrupulous folks out there who do their best to get something for nothing, but the wounded should not pay for their misdeeds.
We must take better care of our veterans — it seems we take better care of illegal aliens and criminals than we do our military. It’s shameful.