Righting an unbelievable wrong.

For those who don't know of it, an Iraqi vet who was discharged due to his war wounds was required by the Defense Dept. to pay back his enlistment bonus on the grounds that he hadn't fulfilled the terms of his contract. The payback was prorated (catch me while I swoon at their magnaminous gesture here) but until it hit Fox News he was on the hook for thousands of dollars.

Cookie at the Cook Shack has been following this. Seems there's a bill wending it's way through the halls of Foggy Bottom to rectify this ridiculous example of beancounters run amok.

We can spend untold millions on dubious allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, dump a double butt ton of money on the Katrina refugees, but the troops get screwed. Reminds me of a few crusty old chiefs I knew who thought "civilian" and "politician" counted as profanity.

Here's Cookie's followup on the story with the necessary information:

Well Sir...two days ago I posted about the unbelievable fact that our brave fighting men and women who have been wounded in combat, and then Honorably Discharged, are being required to pay back their enlistment bonus's because they didn't complete their tours of duty. Read my post from Tuesday, November 20th to bring yourself up to speed in case you're not familiar with this absolutely unfair, unjust asinine, idiotic FUBAR military policy.

Now Sir, one of the folks who contacted me regarding this blog post was Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-Ca). She requested that each of us who feel that this needs to be changed (and I'm presuming that is most of us), that we each contact our respective Congressional Representatives and urge them to vote for bill H.R. 3794, or ( go to( http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-3793 ), The Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act of 2007.

Well Sir....the main folks who introduced and supported this bill are, of all things, Democrats...so...I guess they ain't all bad....Good on ya guys...Congresswoman Davis informed me that between October of 2005, and October of 2006, between 600 to 1100 military personnel have owed debts totaling between 2.5 and 4 million dollars...EACH MONTH!!As the good Congresswoman stated in her correspondence, "simply just bitching about this situation or the Administration will accomplish nothing except wasting cyber-space", and obviously she's correct.

So....Now it's our turn to do something mates...contact your Representative and ask them to support Bill H.R. 3793, The Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act so we can put an end to this insanity.....

Fer those of ya from the great State of Kaliforny...here's Ms. Davis's address....

Representative Susan DavisChair, Subcommittee on Military PersonnelU.S. House of Representatives1526 Longworth House Office BuildingWashington, DC 20515

OR

Speaker Nancy PelosiOffice of the SpeakerH-232, US CapitolWashington, DC 20515

UPDATE (Provided by Cookie)

If you don't know who your Representative is...click on one of the two links in the story, and then, when you've gotten to GovTrack.us, click on the "Legislators" link toward the top. You can then enter your state and find your Rep....