One of the methods the military uses to encourage people to sign up for service is offering enlistment bonuses, in addition to free/reduced education costs and healthcare. But who knew that it would actually cost an arm and a leg to return the enlistment bonuses back to the military? Soldiers who suffered serious injuries– such as the loss of arms and legs– while engaging in active combat in less than the time specified are being told to pay some of the money back.
One soldier from Pittsburgh, Jordan Fox, spoke on this issue:
I tried to do my best and serve my country. I was unfortunately hurt in the process. Now they’re telling me they want their money back.
A bomb along a road blew up the vehicle that Fox was in, knocking him unconscious and resulting in an injured back and loss of vision in his right eye. Recently, he received a surprise letter from the military ordering that he return about $3,000 of the $10,000 bonus. Fox’s in good company because the military apparently tried to strong-arm thousands of other injured soldiers in giving back the bonus. Fox was lucky because just before he made an appearance on a national television show to discuss the issue, “the Pentagon reversed course…and vowed not to send its debt collectors after the wounded soldier.”
In this case, the Pentagon was smart to realize that bad publicity isn’t better than no publicity at all. Talk about literally adding insult to injury! Personally, I feel if a solider puts his/her life on the line to fight the good fight and becomes damaged goods as a result, that should automatically be considered fulfillment of his/her duty. “[The soldiers] SACRIFICED for us and we slap them on the face for getting hurt,” a friend of mine pointed out. Another friend whose husband served in the Army retorted, “They offer you to do something life-threatening with a sort of a bribe, and then when I lose a limb or something, you expect me to just fork over the money? Sorry, honey, it doesn’t work like that!”
Senator Hillary Clinton wrote a letter to Pete Geren, the Secretary of the Army, strongly encouraging him to rethink this dubious policy. In part, she noted:
Soldiers who have enlisted in the Army have made a commitment to serve our nation. With our nation at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we should honor those who make that commitment. By agreeing to serve and then suffering wounds during their service, these soldiers have earned their bonuses. To ask soldiers who are being medically discharged to return their bonuses dishonors their service and undermines the Army’s stated commitment to soldiers and their families.
But interesting enough, thanks to the internet, there’s always a different perspective. I garnered this from a forum:
What kind of military would we have if the enlistees could walk out of their contractual obligations whenver they want? Do you really think that would work?
If they don’t want to risk dying, I understand that 100%. If the don’t like the regimen, fine. I don’t begrudge them one iota. If that is the case, don’t join. No problem.
Find another way to get a free education. Find another way to get your room and board and medical and dental for free. Find another way to get easy home loans with 0% down. Find somewhere else to get inexpensive goods than the PX and exhange. I don’t care.
But if you join, take the bennies, then whine “I didn’t sign up for this” when the going gets tough, I have no pity for you. When you signed that paper and took the oath it was for the good and the bad. Grow up and deal with it, soldier.
So, soldier, grow up and deal with a healthcare system that is turning out to be woefully insufficient. Grow up and deal with the issue of homelessness that affect a significant portion of veterans. Grow up and deal with worrying about just how secure your personal information really is. How can we expect them to deal with the lingering effects of war injuries when we are not doing a good job of providing whatever resources and assistance they may need.
It’s ironic that we seem to be more willing to forgive sport figures who received insanely huge salaries from contracts, and don’t really have anything to show for it. Take Grant Hill, for example. He’s a professional basketball player that never quite reached his potential due to being sidelined for most of his career due to injuries. When Hill signed his seven-year, $93 million contract with the Orlando Magic, no one could predict that he would miss about 73% of the games throughout the years. I don’t see the Orlando Magic asking him for some of the money back.
You can never place a dollar figure on the value of life. But if a basketball player can earn millions while being hurt, our injured soldiers should at least be able to keep the bonus for putting their lives on the line. A nice way for Uncle Sam to say thanks, don’t you think?
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Can you elaborate a little bit on the military position here: what’s their argument for asking wounded soldiers to pay them back? What’s the “time specified” you’re referring to? How widespread is this practice? Just curious to hear what’s the other side’s perspective.
Pondering:
Basically, the bonus is to guarantee that you’ll be in the military for a minimum of three months, in Jordan Fox’s case. According to several friends with ties to the military, the bonuses can range in monetary value as well as the time committment in order to earn that bonus.
Which makes sense. But what if you get seriously injuried? I think you should be able to keep the bonus, because if not for that injury more likely than not they would have fulfilled that obligation.
I completely agree with you that, in the event a solider suffers injuries that will prevent him/her from continuing to serve in the military, he/she should be allowed to retain full rights over the promised monetary bonuses.
Just for the record, are all the cases you were referring to about soldiers that became injured within the initial three months?
This doesn’t surprise me one bit. After all, the Bush administration has already forced the reserves to serve much, much longer than they were supposed to. My husband’s father’s girlfriend is in reserves, and she was only supposed to serve up to a year. But so far she’s served almost 2 1/2 years, and there are many reserves in the same boat as her, and it’s quite a widespread problem.
What we are seeing is an extreme level of desperation by the Bush administration: they know they don’t have enough soldiers…and they know they’re running out of money, since Congress has made it clear that they will not keep writing blank checks to cover the cost of the war.
When the war first began they were only using high school graduates too. It’s supposed to be a “high-tech” war, so “educated troops” were needed and therefore we couldn’t use high school drop outs because we weren’t doing hand-to-hand combat. Well–guess what?? One of my son’s friend’s dropped out of high school and he is in Iraq right now! I asked my son how he could get in the military when they weren’t taking high school drop outs. “That all changed with the war!” he said, “They’re desparate for troops now, so they take anyone.” It’s true. At some point in the past four years, they’ve changed the requirements so they allow high school drop-outs. It used to be a fully volunteer military. Now I’m not so sure. It looks like some of the people going over there now are kids who probably have no other choice. THIS kid didn’t. His parents didn’t want him. He was homeless. It was a sad story. I would have taken him in if I had known but I found out too late. Before you know it, they’ll be sending 16-year-olds over to Iraq. (sigh)
Wow.. I’m shocked, but not totally surprised. The US Government will screw you every which way to next Thursday if they thought they could get away with it. Geez.
Hopefully whoever wins the next presidental election will focus on cleaning up Bush’s mess.
It is definitely disgusting how the wounded vets are treated. My friend was hurt over in Iraq a few years ago. Luckily he is okay now and not suffering any physical ill effects. However, he was just at Walter Reed fighting for a friend of his who lost his eyesight and his ear, among other things, who is not getting all the compensation or help he deserves. I can’t understand why we aren’t trying to help the people who serve this country better.
I understand that a lot of these bonuses are being handed out now to encourage more people to sign up because they need to boost their enlistment numbers. You have some soldiers who are on their 3rd, 4th and 5th tours of duty over to Iraq. Someone said something about sucking it up since they signed up for free healthcare, and school and 0% loans, etc. That may be the instance for some people, but not for all of them. My friend went to college on his own dime and then when he was done with school, he didn’t know what to do with himself and signed up for the Army, figuring he could give back to the county. This was Pre-9/11. A lot of people signed up after the attack to support the fight because they love their country. Now years later the numbers of people enlisting into the Army have declined because the war isn’t going well, people aren’t supporting the troops and there are too many horrible stories out there which speak on how the wounded soldiers are being treated when they get back.
A lot of people are just misinformed about everything going on. And there is a lot of cover up so all these stories aren’t getting out about what is going on behind the scenes. I know I haven’t read up on everything, but I see bits and pieces. I am no expert… but there is a lot of fishy stuff going on!
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