Man Serves in Iraq Due to Clerical Error

A former National Guard captain whose military service was supposed to end seven years ago was sent to Iraq for a year by mistake because of an incorrect discharge date in his records.

"They were still carrying me on the books as a captain," Dillinger, now 45, told the Cincinnati Enquirer. "And nobody caught it. Including me."

Dillinger was told he had not been discharged because of the military's "stop-loss" program, which kept thousands of soldiers from ending their tours or retiring.

"That explanation didn't make complete sense to me, but I accepted it," he said. "I'd been in the Army a long time, and when they tell you something, you believe it."

A message left at a listing for Jim Dillinger in Mount Orab was not immediately returned Tuesday evening.

Dillinger left in January 2005 for Iraq, where he spent a year searching for and destroying roadside bombs. When he returned to the U.S. in December, he saw the erroneous discharge date in his records.

"My eyes popped out of my head," he said. "I couldn't believe that was right. And I knew darn well that it could mean I'd be deployed again."

He got the Guard and the Army Human Resources Command to investigate. On May 22, a human resources assistant reported that Dillinger's discharge date was incorrect. His discharge papers were issued the next day, followed by apologies.

"I honestly believe I helped accomplish something over there, and the men I served with, they are like brothers to me," Dillinger said. "But I can't get past the fact that I should never have been sent there in the first place."

Your statement is meant to be funny but it was true in the early stages of the war.

The military has a method to take care of soldiers if they are involved in an accident or are about to die. They will medically retire you. We had a soldier with cancer who was six months to live and he was medically retired. There are more benefits for your family if you are medically retired. They will continue to receive your pay as a retirement payment and other associated benefits. If I die in a car wreck today, my wife only gets the SGLI, if I am in a car wreck and stay alive for about 24 hours, I can be medically retired. My wife gets the SGLI and also gets my retirement pay. Thats a lot of money.

With the serious injuries that soldiers have received, some have been medically retired since it was believed they were going to die. This was done to ensure the family received more benefits than SGLI. A soldier was in a Germany hospital and expected to die so she was medically retired. Problem, she lived and now was stuck in Germany with no way the military could help her. She was no longer active but reitired which put her in an category where the active military could not help her or even pay for plane ticket home or for her family to come to Germany to get her. The chaplin of the hospital had to get donations to help the soldier give her clothes.

I don't if they have fixed this problem but I felt bad for the soldier.

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