National guard soldiers told to pay back bonuses years after enlisting

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Guardian

National guard soldiers told to pay back bonuses years after enlisting

Thousands in California, many of whom served in Iraq and Afghanistan, called on to return enlistment bonuses amid reported ‘widespread overpayments’

Jamiles Lartey
@JamilesLartey
Saturday 22 October 2016 17.25 EDT

Thousands of soldiers in the California national guard, many of whom served active duty tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, are being asked to pay back large enlistment bonuses they received as much as 12 years ago.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday that nearly 10,000 soldiers may be affected by the demands, after audits “revealed widespread overpayments by the California guard at the height of the wars last decade”.

Christopher Van Meter, a 42-year-old former army captain and Iraq veteran, told the Times he refinanced his home to pay $46,000 in bonus money and student loans which the army said he never should have received.

“These bonuses were used to keep people in,” Van Meter told the paper. “People like me just got screwed.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/22/national-guard-soldiers-enlistment-bonuses-california

[TexasBushwhacker]

1. This is just ridiculous

If they want to go after money that was improperly paid, I suggest they go after the big corporations that got no bid contracts. I can't imagine that Obama approved this.

[EL34x4]

3. This is the California state government, not Obama

that is going after these soldiers.

[TexasBushwhacker]

5. Then Jerry Brown needs to fix it

This reminds me when they tried to get FEMA money back from Katrina victims.

[cstanleytech]

6. I suppose he could but on the other hand this isnt like they didnt get the money they

were promised rather this is money that they were not promised.
I would recommend something though and that is that the state offer them other ways to repay it via the form of work like say if they would agree to put in one weekend a month doing things like helping at homeless shelters or delivery food to the disabled as well as taking them to and from doctors appointments or helping at a day care.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

8. They were promised the money by officials

What? The offer didn't come with an official seal from Washington, so the offer wasn't real?

And you want to force them to work to pay it off? Some of these people were probably ordinary enlisted who are now just trying to pay the bills like the rest of us. I'd bet some of these people are working two jobs already. Where are they going to find the time to volunteer as you suggest?

This is a travesty!

[cstanleytech]

9. Yes they were promised some and they got that the extra money though was not supposed

to have been given them at all.
As for the time to volunteer thats just a suggestion if the governor cannot do anything about it.

[progree]

15. If the soldiers knew they were getting an improperly large bonus, than yes, I agree

they should be expected to pay back the excess. But if they thought they were getting the proper bonus, the bonus promised by officials to get them to enlist / keep them in the Guard during a horrible war, and had no reason to believe they were being given more than authorized, then, no, I most vehemently do not agree that it should be given back.

A promise is a promise. If people can't trust the military or Guard to keep their fucking promises, then they will have fewer people enlisting / reenlisting.

From the article:

[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#CEF6FE;"]The plaintiff, Bryan Strother, alleges that the payments were laid out in binding contracts and that the statute of limitations for the state has long passed.

So it was more than verbal.

[cstanleytech]

20. Yes but the government had specifically stated how much to pay them and

they got that and the government will probably argue that the overpayment was an act of unlawful enrichment.
Personally I think the government should consider simply writing it off as thats just a drop in the bucket compared to how much it spends on defense every year but that is just my opinion.

[2naSalit]

29. They were also prohibited

from retiring or from not re-enlisting... they were not allowed to terminate their service at any time for a couple years, thanks to Rummy and others so I think whatever bonuses that were issued should have been the least they should have received since they were placed on the front lines while the "contractors" were paid exponentially more to do the easier and probably more glamorous roles. It was the National Guard folks who were utilized for the dirty work and who ended up with far more casualties than any other part of the "corps".

[Yo_Mama]

21. But if the mistake was made by the government, not by the soldier, it seems to me the

soldier should not have to repay it.

Many simply cannot repay it, and for those who can, it may be a real hardship that was caused by the state.

[Blanks]

27. The government needs to just let it go...

MAYBE take their state income taxes for a year or two and then forgive it.

Surely it isn't so much money that it's gonna bankrupt California.

[lonestarnot]

37. I read that it was the Pentagon.

[NWCorona]

2. This doesn't surprise me at all unfortunately.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. I hope every would be enlistee hears about this

Repeatedly.

[leanforward]

7. The DOD and/or the State of California need to erase the mistake.

"It was a mistake" they claim. Considering the length of time, the disbursement of funds has been covered in the normal funding. It seems to me, someone is trying to CYA. Considering what the troops put on the line, the folks asking for the money back need to be questioned. It is a funded mistake (forgive the use of this word), and is way down stream. The Guardsmen give up a lot to be on call for potentially making the ultimate sacrifice. Yes, they have identified a mistake, bury it, forget it. Let the guardsmen get on with their lives.

[jbeing]

10. How do they fix the real mistake?

Going to war in the first place.

Get the money back from Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the Republican war criminal death squad.

Also, Halliburton and the war profiteers. What happened to the missing billions of dollars on palettes?

What an upside down thing this is. The one's who risked their lives now have to pay for the privilege of being in danger?

How many re-ups were they forced to endure?

The one's who started the war should be forced to pay for it. Ruin them as they ruined the lives of so many soldiers and civilians.

[shadowmayor]

11. It ain't just California

Kentucky Guard soldiers have been told the same. My buddies in Iraq who re-enlisted were given bonuses. Whether those funds were from the state or the feds at that time I haven't a clue, and couldn't care less. Hillary needs to call this out before STFU donny decides to run on this one.

How about making Haliburton pay for the discrepancies? To go after soldiers now is ridiculous.

[tcbrola]

12. Selective Retention Bonus

The Selective Retention Bonus or SRB program is a retention incentive paid to Soldiers in certain selected MOSs who reenlist for a minimum of 3 years. The objective of the SRB program is to increase the number of reenlistments in critical MOSs that do not have adequate retention levels to man the career force. The bonus will be paid in addition to any other pay and allowances to which the Soldier is entitled.

The reason these people are being forced to pay the money back is they were in overage Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) that were not authorized by law for the Selective Retention Bonus (SRB) Program. Seems Soldiers who knew they were not eligible for SRBs took them anyway. Also, their program monitors and leadership signed off on the applications. Once you sign that paperwork and accept the money, technically you are guilty of fraud punishable by the UCMJ. I have seen many enlisted and career military bite the dust over pay and allowance fraud during my 24 years active duty.

[Massacure]

14. I guess my question though is were the soldiers aware that they were not eligible?

Granted I've never been in the military like you have and you may need to correct my naivety, but I imagine this as something along the lines of a soldier getting pulled aside by his or her commanding officer and being told something along the lines of "Your enlistment ends in December of 2016 but you are eligible to receive a $5,000 bonus if you sign up for a four year reenlistment before then." Assuming that is the case, shouldn't a soldier be able to trust his or her commanding officer on whether or not they are eligible for that money?

[progree]

16. I was in the military. And the answer to your last question is hell yes.

I imagine this as something along the lines of a soldier getting pulled aside by his or her commanding officer and being told something along the lines of "Your enlistment ends in December of 2016 but you are eligible to receive a $5,000 bonus if you sign up for a four year reenlistment before then." Assuming that is the case, shouldn't a soldier be able to trust his or her commanding officer on whether or not they are eligible for that money?

From the article:

[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#CEF6FE;"]The plaintiff, Bryan Strother, alleges that the payments were laid out in binding contracts and that the statute of limitations for the state has long passed.

So it was more than verbal.

[Yo_Mama]

22. Many of them were not, I am sure.

The fact is, this is money given to reenlist. The soldiers obviously did reenlist. They can't get that time back, can they?

The military is confusing, and I would be willing to bet that many of them did not know.

Go after the supervising officers and those who signed off on this, but going after many of these people is just plain wrong.

[christx30]

30. And if the state decides to go after the soldiers for this,

how are future soldiers supposed to trust the state to keep up their ends? Why would anyone reenlist, with this threat hanging over them?

[Yo_Mama]

24. They ought to be able to, and ethics aside, think of this from a contract law standpoint.

If they were told they'd get the money if they reenlisted, and they did, and they completed their enlistment terms honorably, coming after them 10 years later is a one-party abrogation of that contract.

To my mind, this is both unethical and in violation of standard contract law precedents.

[lonestarnot]

38. Offer/acceptance/binding sounds simple enough to me.

[Crash2Parties]

13. If any other employer paid out a bonus, then tried to take it back 12 years later...???

[denbot]

23. This is a disgrace, they earned it!

The President needs to fix this NOW!

[DustyJoe]

28. equity

If they are considered to have kept the money fraudulently then as long as the State of Ca. goes after every case of ineligible welfare, food stamp, housing, medicaid overpayments, then going after the military might be in order to keep things equal and not look like they are picking on just one segment of their population. If no fraud can be proven then they should just drop it like they do when they find out some entitlement recipients became ineligible in prior periods. Prove it's fraud California or just leave it be.

[AwakeAtLast]

31. This happening to my husband

Different state. A higher up made the mistake, but he has to cough up $900.

[Vinca]

33. Sometimes the government should just eat the loss. Disgusting.

[Eugene]

34. Congress knew for at least two years about Pentagon efforts to take back bonuses from veterans

Source: Los Angeles Times

Congress knew for at least two years about Pentagon efforts to take back bonuses from veterans

By David S. Cloud and Sarah D. Wire
OCTOBER 24, 2016, 4:45 PM | REPORTING FROM WASHINGTON

The California National Guard told the state’s members of Congress two years ago that the Pentagon was trying to claw back reenlistment bonuses from thousands of soldiers, and even offered a proposal to mitigate the problem, but Congress took no action, according to a senior National Guard official.

The official added that improper bonuses had been paid to National Guard members in every state, raising the possibility that many more soldiers may owe large debts to the Pentagon.

“This is a national issue and affects all states,” Andreas Mueller, the chief of federal policy for the California Guard, wrote in an email to the state’s congressional delegation Monday. Attention had focused on California because it was “the only state that audited” bonus payments at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he added.

The Times reported Saturday that the Pentagon has been demanding repayment of enlistment bonuses — which often reached $15,000 or more — from thousands of California Guard soldiers, many of whom had served multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Audits completed last month concluded that 9,700 California Guard members were not entitled to the payments or that there had been errors in their paperwork.

Pentagon officials acknowledged Monday that the problem probably extends beyond California.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-bonus-guard-20161024-snap-story.html

[dflprincess]

35. Yet the Pentagon keeps making payments to contractors who are behind in their deliveries

The amount of money these soldiers' bonuses add up to is a drop in the bucket and should be written off.

[lonestarnot]

39. If we make a big enough stink, maybe that will happen!

[Upin]

41. Story is starting to pick up steam....

Either Presidential candidate would be smart to run with it and push to have the debt wiped.

CA claims that they don't have the authority (National Guard) but the federal office does.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

40. They should go after those shrink-wrapped bundles of $9 billion dollars that disappeared in Iraq.

Leave these people alone.

[riderinthestorm]

36. They went back to Iraq during the worst of it.

Making them repay bonus' is pretty low.