DoD: Wounded troops will get full bonus money - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

DoD: Wounded troops will get full bonus money

Troops wounded in combat and discharged because of their medical conditions do not have to repay their enlistment bonuses, defense officials say.

And injured troops who haven’t yet been paid their entire bonus will continue to receive their installment payments.

“Bonuses are not recouped simply for one’s inability to complete an enlistment or re-enlistment agreement through no fault of the military member,” according to a Pentagon policy statement cited in a Nov. 26 American Forces Press Service story posted on the Defense Department’s official Web site.

The policy applies even if a member is receiving installment payments and has not yet been paid the entire bonus.

“If you sign up expecting $7,000 and you're paid part of that money up front and part of the money is due later, and yet you get injured in combat while you are serving, you are entitled to the rest of that bonus, and we pay the rest of that bonus,” Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell said Wednesday.

Bonuses are typically paid out over the term of enlistment, with a partial lump sum paid up front.

The Pentagon policy statement was issued one day after Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., held a news conference criticizing the Pentagon for dunning wounded troops to pay back their bonuses, a practice Schumer said affected hundreds.

He said that when the case of Pfc. Jordan Fox, an Army sniper partially blinded by a roadside bomb in Iraq, was called to the Pentagon’s attention, officials replied that the demand for him to repay $2,800 was a “clerical error,” and the debt was canceled.

But Schumer questioned how other troops in Fox’s situation are being treated. “When you talk to the Pentagon, you get different answers from different people,” he said.

Schumer called on the Defense Department to conduct an internal investigation and audit to identify recently wounded personnel who received dunning letters and assure them that repayments were not required.

He also said he would support proposed legislation, to be called the Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act, to require full payment of bonuses to enlistees within 30 days of discharge from the service due to combat-related injuries.

The policy statement came after Fox appeared on local and national TV and radio shows. Fox, 21, from Mount Lebanon, Pa., was partially blinded in his right eye and sustained a back injury in a bomb explosion in Baqubah in May. He returned to the U.S. two months later and was discharged.

In late October, he got a letter from the Army seeking repayment of part of his enlistment bonus because he had completed only about a year of his three-year term. Another letter arrived a week later warning he could be charged interest if he didn’t make a payment within 30 days.

“I was just completely shocked,” Fox said.

Morrell said the Fox case was an “isolated incident.”

“I do not believe there are large numbers of other veterans out there who have received similar requests from the Army, or any other service, for that matter, asking for their enlistment bonus back,” Morrell said.

He said an Army hotline that handles veterans’ issues has registered no more than “a dozen or so calls from people expressing similar concerns or having similar questions about their enlistment bonus.”

The Pentagon policy statement reaffirmed that recoupment is prohibited “when it would be contrary to equity and good conscience, or would be contrary to the nation’s interests. Those circumstances include, for example, an inability to complete a service agreement because of illness, injury, disability or other impairment that did not clearly result from misconduct.”

According to the story posted on the Pentagon Web site, Army officials said Fox will not have to pay back any enlistment money he received.

The toll-free Wounded Soldier and Family Hotline number is (800) 984-8523).

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