Audit finds widespread enlistment bonus issues

WASHINGTON — Pentagon audits found widespread problems in enlistment bonuses given to soldiers in several National Guard units across the country, but soldiers facing repayment demands in those states won’t be eligible for waivers under a new federal law that will apply only to the California National Guard.

The bonus mistakes appeared less common than in the scandal that has rocked the California Guard, although the Army Audit Agency only looked at a small sample of the bonuses and only at four states.

Agency audits obtained by the Los Angeles Times found “little or no oversight” of bonuses and other financial incentives given to soldiers in Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Pennsylvania from 2006 to 2010, the only states reviewed.

The audits said those Guard units paid “incentives to ineligible soldiers” and later — like the California Guard — sought to recover the money. The reports did not say how many soldiers were affected in the other states.

In October, following stories in The Times, the Pentagon suspended an aggressive effort to recover improper bonuses from about 9,700 California Guard soldiers and veterans. Congress last week passed legislation that is expected to produce waivers for most of them.

But the provision, part of the $619 billion defense authorization bill that President Barack Obama is expected to sign, only applies to the California Guard. Soldiers and veterans from other states are not covered.

Among those ordered to repay their bonuses are soldiers who did not complete their enlistments after they were injured in combat.

Dennis Lang, a former Army reservist from Colombia, Mo., said he received a letter from the Pentagon in March ordering him to repay $5,000 of a $20,000 enlistment bonus after he was discharged from the Army because of injuries he received in Iraq.

A civil affairs sergeant assigned to a small outpost in east Baghdad in 2007 and 2008, he was injured in a mortar attack. He was later diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and memory loss from his head injuries.

He says he first learned that he owed the Army $5,000 when he got a call from a debt collection agency last year, informing him that he was severely delinquent.

The Pentagon had turned it over to a private collection agency because Lang had not responded when they mailed a letter demanding repayment to an address he hadn’t lived at for over a decade, he said.

The debt stemmed from his failure to attend training with his Missouri Guard unit after he returned from Iraq. The Pentagon then demanded partial repayment of his bonus.

When he refused to pay, they began taking $300 out of his Social Security disability check every month.

“I think it’s just disgusting but I haven’t really been fighting it,” he said Wednesday in an interview.

JOHN GIBBINS/UNION-TRIBUNE 2010 While an Army audit found enlistment bonus issues in other states, only California soldiers are eligible for waivers under a legislation passed last week by Congress.