Monday, December 14, 2009

Bonus Army All Over Again?

I have a friend named Jessie who served a tour in Afghanistan about a year and a half ago with the Army. He has since been busy working and going to school. One of the reasons he enlisted (which is common among many soldiers) is to take advantage of the educational reimbursements available through the armed services.

From what I understand you schedule your courses and pay the bill and afterwards submit your schedule and the costs of courses and books to the appropriate office and after review the will reimburse you for your costs. My friend Jessie did all of this recently only to get an answer back from the Army office stating simply: "Sorry, we're out of money."

I'm sure it took a few seconds for that to register, but after going back and forth for a few minutes with the person on the other end of the phone, Jessie realized the discussion was futile and he was not going to be paid back.

So he wrote his senator, Orrin Hatch. Mr. Hatch replied that he will do everything in his power to make sure he receives the benefits he was promised. No word yet.

Of course this is nothing new at all. Just ask Smedley Butler. War truly is a racket.

Apparently the shortfall in funding for this program is about 2 million. Mind you this is mere months after we were able to come up with trillions to bail out various industries, but we can't find 2 million to pay the men and women who have risked their lives for the country and who were promised these precise benefits?




No comments:

Post a Comment