- WASHINGTON - (KRT) Ninety-five
percent of soldiers at eight Army Reserve units sent to Iraq and other
Middle East bases experienced significant problems getting paid, creating
stress and concern about the financial well-being of their families back
home.
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- The soldiers were overpaid or underpaid or paid late,
according to a study by the Government Accountability Office, and the problems
in some instances persisted for more than a year.
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- Soldiers involved in the investigation said the pay issues
hurt morale and the Army Reserve's rate of retention.
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- "You never want to mess with a soldier's money.
That's a cardinal rule," said Army Capt. Orlando Amaro. "When
a soldier has financial issues, the morale just goes through the floor."
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- Amaro was a platoon leader for the 443d Military Police
Company from Owings Mills, Md., when the unit was in Baghdad from May through
December 2003. Virtually all of the 121 soldiers in his company had pay
problems.
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- "Most of the problems stemmed from soldiers not
getting additional allotments, such as family separation pay and combat-zone
allotments," said Amaro, a native Philadelphian who is an officer
in the Washington, D.C., police department.
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- Pay issues were so pressing, Amaro said in an interview,
that he and another officer with a background in finances flew to Kuwait
roughly every two weeks for five months to try to resolve these problems
and prevent new mistakes from occurring.
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- The two officers flew to Kuwait on "space available"
military flights but then had to rent a car with their own money to drive
to the finance office.
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- Amaro and other soldiers, GAO investigators and Pentagon
officials are scheduled to appear today at a hearing before a panel of
the House Committee on Government Reform. The GAO study follows an examination
of Army National Guard soldiers late last year that revealed similar problems.
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- Rep. Todd R. Platts of Pennsylvania, chairman of the
subcommittee on Government Efficiency and Financial Management, has been
working with the Department of Defense to try to correct the pay glitches,
which he called "outrageous."
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- "These are men and women going into harm's way,"
Platts said, "and we should be doing everything to support them, not
creating stress and uncertainty."
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- Apart from affecting what he called "mission performance,"
Platts said these issues had been shown to cause troops to decide not to
reenlist.
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- Sgt. Jesus Salcedo of York, Pa., served 11 months with
the 443d in Baghdad and said he was never sure he was receiving the correct
pay. Ultimately, he discovered he had been shortchanged on his enlistment
bonus and still has not been paid his per diem for travel back to the United
States.
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- "How can I, in a combat environment, find out if
my 4-month-old and my 5 1/2-year-old kids are taken care of?" said
Salcedo, a corrections officer at York County Prison. "I don't want
to be rash, but it was like a slap in the face.
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- "I came home and they threw me a parade. Wonderful,"
he said. "But it's not paying my bills."
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- Almost half of the Army's Reserve - about 98,000 soldiers
- have been mobilized to active duty at some point since September 2001,
according to the GAO.
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- The agency studied eight Army Reserve units, including
the 431st Chemical Detachment in Johnstown, Pa. Ninety-five percent of
the soldiers were affected, with many experiencing more than one variety
of pay problem.
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- Of the 348 reservists - all of whom were mobilized at
some point between August 2002 and January 2004 - 256 received an estimated
$247,000 in overpayments, 294 received about $51,000 in underpayments,
and 245 soldiers received about $77,000 in late payments, the GAO found.
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- In addition, none of the 303 who deployed to designated
combat zones received the proper tax exemptions.
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- "The consequences of inaccurate, late and missing
payments and associated erroneous debts had a profound impact on individual
soldiers and their families," said the prepared testimony of GAO investigator
Gregory D. Kutz. "At one unit several soldiers told us that they had
to borrow money from friends and relatives in order to pay their bills
when they initially deployed overseas."
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- "Soldiers and their families were required to spend
considerable time, sometimes while the soldiers were deployed in remote,
hostile environments overseas, in repeated attempts to address concerns
over their pay and allowances and related tax benefits," according
to Kutz's testimony, which was made available to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
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- The GAO faulted "cumbersome and complex" Pentagon
pay processes, a shortage of well-trained military pay staff, and weaknesses
in the computerized pay systems used by the Defense Finance and Accounting
Service.
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- Retired Maj. George W. Riggins was on inactive reserve
when he volunteered to go on active duty last year. A trained Army pilot,
he was assigned to serve as a liaison officer to the Air Force in Doha,
Qatar.
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- In the course of his tour, Riggins experienced pay and
tax problems and received dunning notices from the Army for money he did
not owe. Even being stationed in a major communications center, he was
unable to untangle the bureaucratic knots until he returned home.
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- "I'm not disgruntled, but there are things the military
can do better to handle these large-scale deployments," said Riggins,
38, who works in Baltimore for Verizon. "For a young soldier with
a family at home relying on his income ... these guys never would have
had the recourse I did."
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- © 2004, The Philadelphia Inquirer.
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- http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/politics/9192779.htm
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