The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

There was one problem. It was not true.

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself.

Mr. Hitchens asked Mr. Shelton if he wanted to feel. Mr. Shelton said he did.

“He looks around and says, ‘is anybody looking?’ And I said ‘no, of course not!’ And we’re standing in the middle of the ballroom at the Marriot Marquee.” Mr. Shelton said. “He unzipped his pants and he said ‘feel it, feel it.’ So I stuck my hand in there and all I really felt was a very clean… penis. That’s all I really felt. So I said, ‘Wow! That’s really great! I mean, nice penis!’ Then I pulled it out and he zipped up.”

Mr. Hitchens asked Mr. Shelton if he’d felt how smooth everything was. Mr. Shelton said he had not.

“I said I really didn’t feel, you know, where it would be smooth and all that,” Mr. Shelton said. “He said, ‘Do you want to feel it again?’ And I said, ‘Well, as a matter of fact, yes, I do.’ So he says, ‘Do you want me to guide your hand?’ And I said, ‘yes, as a matter of fact I do.’ He said, ‘Is anybody looking?’ And I said ‘No, of course not.’ He said, ‘Do you want me to guide you?’ and I said, ‘Yes, please guide me.’ So he takes my hand and he guides it into his open fly and he goes on to rub it all over his very smooth pubic area. You cannot believe how smooth it is. And I said, ‘Hitchens! That is really smooth!’ And he said, ‘I know.’”

At that point, Mr. Shelton took back his hand and Mr. Hitchens refastened his trousers. Just then, one of Mr. Shelton’s colleagues from Kirkus came over and said hello. Pretty soon, according to Mr. Shelton, her hand was in Mr. Hitchens’ pants as well.

“Her hand went in there and it went everywhere. She didn’t need any guiding at all,” Mr. Shelton said. “They sort of both looked at the ground.”