Army: Unclear How Many Soldiers Asked To Return Enlistment BonusesDespite the Pittsburgh TV station KDKA citing “thousands” of wounded soldiers being asked to return their recruitment bonuses, it’s unclear how many actually were, according to Army spokesman Paul Boyce.
Boyce says he has personally been in touch with the station’s reporters as part of the Army’s efforts to get to the bottom of the bonus-recoupment story, and he’s been able to determine that 300 soldiers were asked to send back part or all of their battlefield pay — not their bonuses. So far, the Army attributes the mistake to an insufficient number of finance clerks at some hospitals where wounded soldiers were admitted in 2004 and 2005, resulting in paperwork mix-ups. In 99 of those cases, the remittance was waived “on the spot” after the Army caught the error. For the remaining 201, some measure of congressional assistance was required, Boyce said, but for all cases that didn’t involve a soldier involved in obvious wrongdoing (a more precise number was unavailable), soldiers kept their money. In response, the Army beefed up their finance personnel at its hospitals, Boyce said.
It remains unclear how many wounded soldiers actually received notices from the Army demanding they return their recruitment bonuses — or who don’t receive installments of those bonuses — after injuries prevented them from finishing their service commitments. Boyce says the Army is “presently looking into the circumstances” of how many soldiers were asked to send back their bonuses.