Nelson appeals for compassion for wronged WW II vet

January 9, 2008

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson just can’t accept the U.S. Army’s recent decision to pay a wrongfully imprisoned World War II veteran only $725 in back pay, and now is appealing directly to Defense Secretary Robert Gates for a more compassionate outcome.

“While the Army has acted to right this past wrong, the injustice is further compounded by an unfair remedy,” Nelson wrote to Gates in a letter today.  “I’m requesting your assistance in providing a just outcome.”

According to Nelson, a just outcome for the veteran in question - 83-year-old Samuel Snow, of Leesburg, Florida - would be to pay him the $725 back pay he’s owed from the mid 1940s, but to do so in today’s dollars, which would amount to around $8,000.

“Mr. Snow’s case seems to have reached a bureaucratic impasse between the Army and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, which has refused to adjust the back pay for inflation,” the senator wrote to Gates.

It was in mid-December that Nelson asked Army Secretary Pete Geren to revise the military’s decision and adjust Snow’s 1944-1945 pay upward for inflation.  But a couple of days later, the Army chief’s staff said their hands were tied, spurring the Florida lawmaker to appeal directly to the Pentagon’s top boss to help Snow.

Snow and 27 other black soldiers were convicted and dishonorably discharged in connection with a melee in 1944 that resulted in the lynching of an Italian prisoner of war.  Snow maintained all along he wasn’t involved.  And last October, the Army Board for Correction of Military Records granted a petition by him and three other families to overturn the convictions.

That decision, due to an unfair trial, made the veteran eligible for back pay for the time he was wrongly imprisoned.  Last Nov. 13, Snow received a check for $725.  Besides Snow, at least one of the other soldiers involved reportedly still is alive and could be affected if Gates responds favorably.

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