UPDATE: Enlistment Bonuses NOT Being Taken from Medically Discharged Soldiers

A few weeks ago the Rapid City Journal editorialized on an alleged Department of Defense policy requiring combat-wounded military personnel to give back a portion of the enlistment bonus they received if they are medically retired or separated from the military due to combat-related injury.

Accepting the accuracy of this respectable newspaper's editorial at face value, I joined them in calling for passage of the Wounded Warrior Bonus Equity Act, a measure which would prevent such a cold-hearted and ungrateful policy toward our wounded military heroes.

But today NewsMax says that while enlistment bonuses were mistakenly asked for from a handful of injured and discharged military members, it was not systemic and not a DOD policy:

THE FACTS: The Pentagon's long-existing policy is to pay enlistment bonuses in full to soldiers who leave the armed forces early for reasons beyond their control. Officials last year reported clerical mistakes that resulted in a few wounded veterans being asked for bonus money back, said those cases would be redressed and revised the wording of its policy in September so lapses wouldn't be repeated.

One case was uncovered by a presidential commission formed earlier last year to recommend improvements in veterans' care. "It certainly didn't rise to the level of an important issue in our work," Susan Hosek, a Rand Corp. economist who was the commission's research director, told AP in December. "If it had, we would have made sure that it was highlighted in our report ... we literally only heard about it once, that I know of."

The commission was led by former Sen. Bob Dole and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala.

Looks like somebody got some bad information on this one. Being a 10-year military veteran myself, I'm very well acquainted with goof-ups in government bureaucracy, but I'm very glad to hear that this was not a policy of the Department of Defense.

It stretched credulity for me at the time, but when you read something so bold and clear-cut from a reputable newspaper...