Pat Dollard

A Department of Defense official tells me that a number of prominent MSM Pentagon correspondents were ready to take the Pentagon to task, but all ultimately dropped the story. Why? It turns out that, upon investigation, the LAT’s page-one piece was mostly fiction.

“They’re just flat wrong” said the Pentagon’s Undersecretary for Military Personnel Policy Bill Carr, “we have no such policy, and never have.” Carr clarified that “as for the two wounded warriors described in the article, both were separated under programs giving special, additional and full benefits reserved for the combat wounded.”

Meanwhile, I’m informed that the Florida Times Union—which ran the LAT story on its own front page—promises to correct the record by printing the Pentagon’s side of the story soon.

The LA Times article cited in your November 26, page 1 story (“Pentagon to wounded: You weren’t in combat”) misrepresents Defense Department policy implementing a recent law, and wrongly describes its application to two wounded warriors.

Any injury incurred in the military is rated against a set of standards, with each condition translating to a percentage disability (on ten percent increments). When the percentage totals 30% or greater, the person is placed on a lifetime annuity (medically retired); when 20% or less, the person is separated with a lump sum severance payment computed as 2-months pay multiplied by years of service.

Recent law boosted the level of severance pay for those injured (quoting from law) in the “line of duty in a combat zone” or during the “performance of duty in combat-related operations” allowing a higher multiplier (6 years service is credited when one has fewer, boosting its value). Congress specifically limited this to the situations underlined above.

The Department welcomed that law, and the fact that it extends special recognition to those who are injured in a combat zone. The nation has long attached special recognition to combat injuries, as opposed to those injured otherwise. For example, the Purple Heart specifically recognizes the special circumstances of one injured when confronting a hostile force.

Some Veterans Organizations want this “extra credit” to extend not only to combat injuries, but also those hurt during a simulation of war (training), instrumentality of war (struck by a military vehicle at Mayport), or participation in hazardous duties, not related to combat. But that’s not what the law says to us.

But make no mistake – the Pentagon policies that implement the law give special, additional benefits to those injured in combat; we do not diminish them and the LA Times story you repeated is simply false.

The LA Times article cited two cases, both of which occurred in combat. Please be assured that anyone in that situation gains benefits and loses none, under the law and policy the Times failed to correctly describe. That mistake impedes our efforts to convey clear and accurate information to injured warriors and their families, to whom this nation owes so much. DoD is doing its part to help the military community find quick-and-clear answers.