Just when you are tempted to think that the kind of bureaucratic lunacy that inspired Joseph Heller to write “Catch-22” had been entirely eradicated, along comes an un-named financial wizard to demand that soldiers forced to leave the service early by the severity of their wounds pay back the “unearned” portion of their enlistment bonuses:

The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

One of them is Jordan Fox, a young soldier from the South Hills… Fox was seriously injured when a roadside bomb blew up his vehicle. He was knocked unconscious. His back was injured and lost all vision in his right eye.

A few months later Fox was sent home. His injuries prohibited him from fulfilling three months of his commitment. A few days ago, he received a letter from the military demanding nearly $3,000 of his signing bonus back.

There’s a better case for waterboarding than those we’ve previously discussed. Just to try and find out what that idiot was really thinking.

Update: Wisdom prevails -

A military spokesman told KDKA’s Marty Griffin the bill sent to Fox was a mistake.

Griffin asked Army Spokesperson Major Nathan Banks if the government was taking on Fox’s case.

Banks said via phone, “We are. We are … definitely working it out. We have seen where the problems have been made, the system, and we’re just making – you know, give us the opportunity to make a wrong a right.”

Major Banks says Fox will not have to pay back his bonus.

That’s more like it.