The NY Times has a very disturbing story today about reservists who deserted:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 (AP) — The Pentagon has done little to recover about $900,000 mistakenly paid to 75 Army reservists who have not reported for duty since late 2001, Congressional investigators said in a report on Monday.

Fewer than two dozen of the deserters have surrendered or been arrested, the report said.

We discussed the military’s desertion problem three weeks ago.

In response to a commenter on the deserter story I mentioned how back during the recent unpleasantness in SouthEast Asia we’d occasionally see riflemen re-up. We’d shake our heads in surprise and disappointment, even when they’d tell us they did it for the VRB. (The Variable Reenlistment Bonus was a program that paid differing amounts of cash, in a lump sum, to troops who re-upped, depending on how scarce their MOS was and how long a term they signed up for. Scarce and desperately needed MOS’s got $ Serious Money, as it was considered in the late 60s.) Now, if you were nearing the end of your term of enlistment in Nam, and re-upped you got a free (non-chargable) 30 day leave in the States, and collected your VRB passing through Ft Ord or Ft Lewis on the way in.

It took a while for the Army to figure out that a lot of these guys just never showed up at the end of their 30 day leave. Sometimes they were nice about it and sent the Pentagon a post card from Canada telling them where they’d dumped their fatigues.

The number of improper payments and the money involved was probably significantly understated, the investigators said. The report said the Army and the Army National Guard and Reserve had acknowledged being unaware of the extent of the problem because there is no system to track such records.

Now, isn’t that interesting. The Army and National Guard have become very Republicanized (and therefore quite sloppy and incompetent in keeping track of things that belong on lists.) So they had no idea there was a problem, lied to DOD about the magnitude of the problem, and couldn’t be bothered to keep track of missing soldiers and the money paid to them. The article doesn’t say whether the money was for travel and pay or bonuses of some kind.

The G.A.O. first reported the payment errors in 2004. It contacted Pentagon officials again this year to determine whether the money had been repaid or the deserters found.

A Pentagon spokesman, Brian Maka, said officials were still reviewing the report and its recommendations.

They’re still trying to work out some kind of cover story.

I’ll bet somehow it will involve either The Clenis(TM) or some Democrat who screwed up.