Lip service is paid, but little else. As I have heard more stories about how young people enlisted for a bonus so mom could keep the house, this little loophole must come as a total surprise. I am certain they are looking at the US military to take care of them for their service -- especially if they are wounded in the line of duty.

Uncle Sam handing them a Purple Heart and clasping his other hand on their wallet is not a pretty picture.

"Stupid"? No, I'd use a couple of other adjectives -- IMMORAL, UNACCEPTABLE, and INCREDIBLE all come to mind.

Can you imagine the self-righteous howls of protest from the right-wing echo chambers if this occurred during a Democratic administration? Huh -- wonder if FauxNews, Rush Limbaugh and others will even report this scandal...

Bruce Springsteen song has been written.

And the hits just keep on coming!

when an administration hires all those in-bread Christian right idiots.

Plus, they all will go to Hell.

Hope the new legislation passes asap. Do these guys think that bonehead plays like this won't get out?

...what percentage of the military (and military families) vote the Republican nominee will get in 2008? Probably the good majority.

that they aren't being charged with desertion as well.

The Whore House and the Pentagon can find money for Blackwater, Haliburton, and the Carlyle Group but not for our troops. Defense spending has always been fullof graft and corruption. Weapons systems that went nowhere and did nothing, programs that just ladled dollars into contractors soup pots while our soldiers battled it out in unarmored National Guard vehicles from the Korean War.

George Whore Bush and Chancelor Cheney don't give a rat's ass about anyone but lining their own pockets.

I can't find a good link, but I recall that a photojournalist, Nita? Nina? Berman? did a photoessay on wounded soldiers, I believe in 2004. I seem to remember she mentioned that some of the wounded were "asked" to return a portion of their signing bonuses.

Also, Karen Fragala wrote about this, I believe, in Newsweek at least a couple of years ago.

Well, anyway...more to the point: It's about time that the military rank-and-file and their families began to face reality. If they continue to support this illegal, immoral War of Choice, I wish I could ask them to return my tax dollars that were wasted on executing this ridiculous war.

Obviously, they want to give soldiers a motivation not to get wounded. See? It all makes perfect sense.

Yeah, I can understand taking back the enlistment bonus if the personnel got kicked out of the military for less than honorable circumstances, but if they got out with an honorable discharge (for any reason), then they should be able to keep that bonus that they probably used as part of a down payment on a house. No one should have to suffer further if they earned a Purple Heart in their service to this great nation of ours.

Then they should make it a deferred bonus, payable on exit or apportioned. Because the men and women already paid taxes on it and now the government wants the sum back.

"Fredo"Gonzales,the most incompetent A.G. this country has ever had, gets 40 Grand to give a speech--Scott McClellan will no doubt rake it in$$$$$$$ for covering for the REAL TRAITORS in the Plame outing,and the poor kids who fought this made-up war are told to give their signing money back because they got shot too soon!!!!I hope all you REPUBLICONS are proud today--Real Americans All!!!!!!

Please tell me this is a joke. Please tell me that the date is actually April 1st, and this is just a prank. Please tell me that the last 7 years were one long nightmare that we'll all wake up from soon.

Support the troops - wear a yellow ribbon and then screw them over as much as possible! That is the Republican way. After all, they're just poor folk to the right wing.

Bob Dole doesn't count, the Republicans figured 1996 was going to be Bill Clinton's no matter what they did. Veterans, especially veterans of a nasty little colonial war against the general population of a small country like Vietnam or Iraq, now are only

valued if they can control the levers of power in the VFW or American Legion. The real heroes for today's Republicans are those who proved to have that genial selfishness, the entepreneurial initiative to avoid serving in those nasty scenes.

To them a Jim Webb or John Kerry are at best useful idiots. The pro-war combat avoider is their hero and model. George W Bush, Cheney, Limbaugh, Romney, Giuliani and O'Reilly, to name a few.

explain what "support the troops" actually means to this administration? (Besides Stephen Colbert, I mean).

SSDD!! the more things change the more they stay the same. i am no fan of the government and this article just brings that home even more!! God Bless all the soldiers who are dealing with this and may all who are in iraq return home safely,

DoD rips a page from the NFL.

Then they should make it a deferred bonus, payable on exit or apportioned. Because the men and women already paid taxes on it and now the government wants the sum back.

-- Nulla Sallus

This is trolling, right? You're not actually trying to deflect attention from the problem by bringing up sports?

Couldn't the Commander-in-Chief just order the Pentagon to stop this?

Oh, wait, the injured troops aren't uber-rich are they?

Well, in that case, let's just f**k 'em.

Funny isn't it that the Pentagon isn't demanding repayment of the $12 Billion in "Cash" that the US Air Force delivered (courtesy of the Bush White House)to Iraq and then immediately lost! Wether those $Billions ever actually got to Iraq is another unknown and will remain so seeing that no official effort has been exerted to track them down.Interestingly those singing bonuses,wanted returned so badly by the Pentagon are miniscule in comparison.