Grumpy Editor notes this is how the Pentagon these days treats thousands of troops who fought, some multiple times, in Iraq and Afghanistan, a decade ago after those in uniform received enticing bonuses of $15,000 or more to go overseas:
Washington wants its money back from the troops who saw battle.
A Saturday Los Angeles Times story by David S. Cloud reveals not only are the troops ordered to repay the enlistment bonuses, but they are “slapped with interest charges, wage garnishments and tax liens if they refuse --- after audits revealed widespread overpayments by the California Guard at the height of the wars last decade.”
Cloud points out; “Investigations have determined that lack of oversight allowed for widespread fraud and mismanagement by California Guard officials under pressure to meet enlistment targets.”
He adds, “Soldiers say the military is reneging on 10-year-old agreements and imposing severe financial hardship on veterans whose only mistake was to accept bonuses offered when the Pentagon needed to fill the ranks.”
Meanwhile, also being mistreated is Boston area Army reservist Capt. Shane Morgan, an Afghanistan veteran, who is struggling to pay his medical bills after he had a heart attack during a fitness test. Now he's fighting to get health benefits from the Army.
Remember the old enlistment slogan, “Join the Navy and See the World?”
The Pentagon now sends Navy personnel, away from ships, to dangerous locations on land.
Such was the case last week in Iraq when 34-year-old Chief Petty officer Jason C. Finan, of Anaheim, Calif., died from wounds in a roadside bomb blast near Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul in northern Iraq.
He was assigned to a land-based explosive-ordnance-disposal mobile unit.
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Oops!
A Richmond, Va. TV news anchor finds out the hard way that one letter can make a blushing difference when reading the teleprompter.
A typo causes him to say “check your panties" rather than "check your pantries."
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