We've got to stop meeting this way...

Some stories are scandals and some are just outrages. And some scandals are outrageous, like this week's entry, the 56th on the Upper Left Scandal Scorecard.

One thing I don't think has changed since my days in the Army is what we knew as the 'three M's of morale' - you just don't mess with a soldier's meals, mail or money. That's why I find the results of a GAO audit of the Defense Department payroll accounting so distressing.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Army Reserve payroll procedures for activated soldiers are so convoluted that mistakes occurred in 95 percent of the cases examined by congressional auditors, the Government Accountability Office said Monday.

Soldiers sent to Iraq and Afghanistan have had to spend a year or more straightening out problems affecting their pay, allowances and tax benefits, the GAO said.

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The GAO found the payment system was so "error-prone, cumbersome and complex that neither (the Defense Department) nor, more importantly, Army Reserve soldiers themselves could be reasonably assured of timely and accurate payments."

A 95% error rate in military pay? For men and women under fire? For troops whose tours are extended and discharges postponed? And you wonder why retention rates are dropping like a rock.

To the GAO, it's "error-prone, cumbersome and complex." For the troops it's morale sapping mistreatment.

At Upper Left, it's a scandal, and the list grows again.