Posted on 10/24/2016 2:02:23 PM PDT by yoe
The Pentagon is seeking to recover decade-old reenlistment bonuses paid to thousands of California Army National Guard soldiers to go fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Los Angeles Times (link) reported that nearly 10,000 soldiers, many of whom completed multiple combat tours, have been ordered to repay the cash bonuses after audits revealed widespread overpayments by California Guard officials.
The soldiers say the military is reneging on old agreements and imposing severe financial hardship on those whose only mistake was to accept the bonuses, which amounted to $15,000 or more.
(Excerpt) Read more at insider.foxnews.com ...
Brought to you by our friends at the DNC, Obama, and her heinous HRC.
The issue is they signed a contract that allowed the government to send them overseas into harms way, for a sum of money. It seems the Guard establishment played funny, probably giving combat MOS bonuses to folks who did not deserve them. All it takes is filling out the form and changing a 51B20 (Carpentry And Masonry Specialist) to 11B20 (Infantry) to get the required bonus.
I would suggest, as such bonuses are looked over by the entire recruiting and retaining command,( drafter, senior command NCO, signed off by the commanding officer) that this was done on a wink and nod basis by state officers up and to the TAG. After all recruiting goals must be met, and that is what it took back then. In defense of the folks that did this, they were likely told by their command to make certain numbers by hook and crook, if the NG does not get the figures they are supposed to, they loos money form the Federal National Guard.
An audit showed that folks were given bonuses they did not deserve. Very easy to check with Milpers. No way this happened on such a larges scale (9700 affected) without the entire leadership at the time knowing it up to the TAG level, money is accounted for.
So it is not the soldiers fault, but the chain of command, as it usually is. Most of these guard soldiers were likely in their late 20s, on a second enlistment (currently it is 8 years)and not really all that up on what they could and could not get. If they were offered a bonus and they did their full 8 years, well they earned it, you sign a contract and they did their part. It is a shitty trick to do a bait and switch on them, especially as a lot of them likely blew the money and do not have that much to show for it.
If you understand what happened here, it really is a vial thing to go after the soldiers for what recruiting and retention command NCOs/Officers did 10 years ago.
Actually the guilty parties did this back in the Bush era.
That said the Auditor ahs no choice, his/her job is to root out waste and corruption.
To fix this you need congressional action.
HA. That reminds me, a week or so before my son left for USMC boot camp, the next-door neighbor was chatting with him. The neighbor asked, “...so what kind of deal did you get? What did they guarantee you?”, and my son kind of shrugged, and I said I think the only thing he’s guaranteed is a haircut!
OK, sounds like you all found an honest recruiter.
If it can be proven in a court that a particular soldier engaged in *fraud* to procure the payment then of course it should be returned.Anything else...no way!
Got an idea for the Trump people: have Trump pay off this debt for the soldiers out of his pocket. Would amount to what, a million or so? Be amazing good will.
(see my tagline since 2008)
It’s $100 million in total.
Got it, quite a lot, but Trump of all people, given the overwhelming reaction for the campaign, may want to consider it. JMHO.
Yeah, figured it was so. The problem is that when it is this widespread Auditors should have caught this the following year or at least as part of the separation/retirement process. No excuse for this type of massive mistake. It always turns out bad when government people don’t do the jobs they are paid or “sworn” to do.
I will speculate that the re-enlistment contracts stated the exact amount of the bonus, or stated the exact calculation necessary to determine the bonus, and stated the exact conditions that had to be met to receive the bonus, and stated the exact maximum bonus that would be paid under any circumstance.
I will also speculate that a significant percentage of the soldiers immediately reported they received an overpayment, and they immediately returned that overpayment to the Army, without any coercive actions by the Army at all.
We can send plane loads of cash to our enemy and have the balls to bring up an issue like this?
Everything this administration does is a smack in the face to honest Americans.
You dream. It is being collected.
I’ve written my congresscritter about it. Awaiting an answer.
This is FUBAR and basically the Obama Administration getting revenge on our soldiers for fighting against Obama’s Islamic Jihadi buddies
This may have an impact on the local vote.
“And everyone should know by now - don’t trust anything that the recruiter tells you.”
As I recall from my friends. when you really “sign up”, it’s a CONTRACT between you and a branch of the government, not the recruiter. A contract is the foundation of all business conducted in a free economy, and there are long-established rules on contracts. If the person who offered it had no business offering it or signing it, the contract may be void, but considering that so many years have passed AND the government had freely and without strings paid the money so many years ago, if this were a normal business contract, the rules would favor the person who got the money (very strongly).
But, as we all now know, the “rules” don’t apply to the government, members of Congress, employees of the government, and so on.
Obama’s war on the military.
I had a buddy that joined the Navy back in 80/81. Before the buildup.
The cadence in boot was: ‘Hey you, don’t be blue, my recruiter screwed me too.’
If a representative (of the government, operating legally or not) signed that document with a soldier, AND the government paid that money (with the implication that it was a valid indebtedness), AND so much time has passed, in a normal court of business law, the soldier would get to keep the money as I understand it. OF course, the government can basically jigger the laws any way that it pleases these days - or, just ignore them entirely.
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