When Soldiers Go Without Paychecks:
"Members of the National Guard and the various military reserves joined up to be part-time civilian soldiers, called up during domestic emergencies and in time of war. This model was coming to an end even before the war in Iraq. Stretched thin by the peacekeeping missions of the 1990's, the Pentagon was already calling up more part-timers and stationing them abroad for longer. But the invasion and occupation of Iraq have magnified the problem."

If the Defense Department wants the reservists to be full-time, long-term soldiers, it is especially important that it end the unfair practice of paying them late — or not at all — for months on end. A new report from the General Accounting Office blames a payroll system so primitive and error-prone that few people fully understand it. The system fails because the people who run it often do not know how to process active-duty pay for mobilized reservists. As a result, soldiers sometimes spend months waiting for the pay they have earned.

In one striking case, a Special Forces unit deployed in Afghanistan for a year received incorrect paychecks for 11 months, capped by largely erroneous statements saying that each soldier, on average, owed the federal government $48,000.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/opinion/21FRI3.html