In the Army if you are shot, and slip into a coma, you don't get paid. "Get back to work you Sad Sack!"

Having nearly lost his life in Iraq, the 1st Infantry Division soldier became lost to the Army payroll system because of a paperwork snafu as he lay comatose in a veterans hospital near Chicago. As a result, an Army bureaucrat classified him as absent without leave and cut off his pay, as is sometimes done when the system loses track of a soldier. The theory is that a GI wrongly listed as AWOL will start shouting and then the issue can be resolved. "That may work for an able-bodied soldier," says Michael Hurst, a former Army finance officer, "but it doesn't work so well for a guy in a coma in Chicago."

You know I find it so hard to understand why we are not doing very well in Iraq. Clearly this is a crack military unit. Hey I support the troops but the Bureaucracy is mindnumbingly stupid.

"Anybody seen Doug?"
"No Captain. I lost track of him after that big firefight we had in Fallujah."
"Shit. I'll bet that asshole went AWOL! Well I'll teach him. I'll cut his fucking pay."
"Hey Captain maybe he got wounded."
"Nah. He is probably just trying to screw Uncle Sam out of some of that sweet taxpayers money."