Injured Troops Get to Keep Meal Allowance

The Defense Department can no longer try to recoup meal allowances from sick and injured servicemen while they are receiving treatment in military hospitals.

The U.S. Senate today inserted language prohibiting the practice into the Pentagon's $87 billion request for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Servicemen receive a daily stipend of $8.10 for food. Upon leaving a military hospital, where they received all their meals, they had been billed for the daily stipend to prevent double-dipping.

However, the nasty way that some wounded GIs were hounded for the money caused outrage in Congress.

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