Posted on: Thursday, August 26, 2004

EDITORIAL
Pay's not a given for Army reservists

It's bad enough that the manpower-strapped Pentagon is sending reservists, National Guard troops and even personnel who have completed their active-duty commitments back for second and third tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What's totally unacceptable is an inability to pay many of them accurately or on time.

A Government Accountability Office audit found that as many as 95 percent of Army reservists called to active duty during these conflicts have experienced problems with pay.

Some were substantially underpaid, to the point where their dependents at home were threatened with loss of housing. Others were overpaid, and found they had great difficulty in getting the overpayment halted.

It took some soldiers a year or more to get the problems straightened out. Many of them had to deal with these hassles at the same time they were serving in combat situations.

The Department of Defense says it is taking corrective action. We hope so.

"These pay problems often had a profound adverse impact on individual soldiers and their families," the study said.

Given that these are people who have volunteered to put their lives on the line for their country, that's unacceptable.