A Reuters review of individuals’ military pay records, government reports and other documents, along with interviews with dozens of current and former soldiers and other military personnel, finds payroll errors in the military are widespread. And “once mistakes are detected, getting them corrected — or just explained — can test even the most persistent soldiers.”

“Precise totals on the extent and cost of these mistakes are impossible to come by, and for the very reason the errors plague the military in the first place: the Defense Department’s jury-rigged network of mostly incompatible computer systems for payroll and accounting, many of them decades old, long obsolete, and unable to communicate with each other.”