November 28, 2007 - The U.S. Army has failed in its duty to wounded soldiers in hundreds of cases, literally adding insult to injury. It must move faster to contact veterans seriously wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan and reassure them that, contrary to notifications many have received, they do not have to repay part of their enlistment bonuses because they didn't complete their tours of duty.

It's outrageous that some wounded veterans received such notices and had to worry about returning tens of thousands of dollars. The Army agrees. It has blamed the appalling situation on clerical errors, the result of computers matching bonus payouts to terms of completed service, without regard to early discharges due to war injuries.

The Pentagon now says it's conducting a review to determine how many wounded veterans, in the Army or other services, have been getting the notices. It has also set up a hotline at 800-984-8523, for veterans receiving such letters to complain about them.

That's not good enough. The Pentagon must not put the burden on veterans to call or wait for a lengthy review to sort things out. At the very least, it should notify all veterans from those wars to let them know that if they got an early discharge because of war wounds, they will not have to repay a cent of their bonuses - some of which run up to $40,000, if a combination of factors such as language training or other specialized skills are involved.

Complaints from several New York vets have prompted calls from the state's congressional delegation for bills to redress this mistake. That's well intentioned, but unnecessary, since the egregious error is already being addressed. Still, the Pentagon must move more quickly. The lumbering bureaucracy is slow to correct its own administrative snafus. But when it's faced with a particularly appalling error affecting hundreds of veterans who risked their lives for their country, time is of the essence.