Remember that tax-free $15,000 bonus that National Guard members and Army Reservists were to get for re-enlisting? An American Services Press Service story mentions such a bonus as late as March. Apparently in April they were cancelled, according to a story in The News Tribune of Tacoma, Washington.
The source was Sen. Patty Murray (D-Seattle), but this isn't just a partisan attack. The Pentagon confirmed the cancellation "by order of the Office of Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs," because the bonuses "violated Pentagon policies because they duplicated other programs.... Guard and Reserve members would be eligible for other bonuses." There was no elaboration or further explanation -- from the two Pentagon reps mentioned, that is, so the newspaper couldn't offer any, either.
The decision to cancel the bonuses had caused “tremendous uncertainty” among Guard members who had been counting on the money after they decided to re-enlist.
No surprise there, given that median household income in Washington is under $48,000 (according to 2004 census figures), and given that Guard members and Reservists serving in Iraq are likely breadwinners for their families. But even though the story was published on Sunday, it has had almost no followup, and certainly no further explanation, outside the outrage in the blogosphere. (Thanks to Daily Kos and TPM Cafe.)
That's not the only newly revealed problem. USA Today reports that about 28 percent of Iraq war vets, some 50,000 this year alone, "have come home from the Iraq war with health problems that require medical or mental health treatment, according to the Pentagon's first detailed screening of servicemembers leaving a war zone."
Almost 1,700 servicemembers returning from the war this year said they harbored thoughts of hurting themselves or that they would be better off dead. More than 250 said they had such thoughts "a lot." Nearly 20,000 reported nightmares or unwanted war recollections; more than 3,700 said they had concerns that they might "hurt or lose control" with someone else.
Let's not forget that in June, Congress approved an emergency appropriation of $1.5 billion after Veteran Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said, according to the Washington Post, "that the administration had vastly underestimated the number of service personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who would seek VA medical treatment."