| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
21 Nov 2003 04:46:56 PM |
| Object: |
When Our Soldiers Go Without Paychecks |
From a New York Times editorial, 11/21/03:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/opinion/21FRI3.html
When Soldiers Go Without Paychecks
Members of the National Guard and the various military reserves joined
up to be part-time civilian soldiers, called up during domestic
emergencies and in time of war.
This model was coming to an end even before the war in Iraq.
Stretched thin by the peacekeeping missions of the 1990's, the
Pentagon was already calling up more part-timers and stationing them
abroad for longer.
But the invasion and occupation of Iraq have magnified the problem.
If the Defense Department wants the reservists to be full-time,
long-term soldiers, it is especially important that it end the unfair
practice of paying them late -- or not at all -- for months on end.
A new report from the General Accounting Office blames a payroll
system so primitive and error-prone that few people fully understand
it.
The system fails because the people who run it often do not know how
to process active-duty pay for mobilized reservists.
As a result, soldiers sometimes spend months waiting for the pay they
have earned.
In one striking case, a Special Forces unit deployed in Afghanistan
for a year received incorrect paychecks for 11 months, capped by
largely erroneous statements saying that each soldier, on average,
owed the federal government $48,000.
In another case, a sergeant stationed in Uzbekistan who could not get
his unit paid was forced to carry the soldiers' personnel data by hand
to headquarters in Kuwait -- a dangerous trip, during which he came
under fire.
The fact that this problem has plagued reservists for years makes it
even more inexcusable.
The Pentagon needs to fix the payroll system quickly.
If reservists are going to risk their lives in battle, as others in
uniform do, the least we can do is pay them on time.
_______________________________________________________
Less for our troops means more for Halliburton.
Harry
.
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