Guard troops will keep bonuses
Pentagon no longer to seek repayment from Californians
Defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered the Pentagon on Wednesday to stop efforts to seek repayment for excessive recruiting bonuses that went to many California National Guardsmen.
The move came after news broke over the weekend that the Pentagon had been seeking repayment of enlistment bonuses paid to California Guardsmen. Some of the payments were made by mistake, others were taken fraudulently.
“While some soldiers knew or should have known they were ineligible for benefits they were claiming, many others did not,” Carter said in a statement. “About 2,000 have been asked, in keeping with the law, to repay erroneous payments.”
As first reported by the Los Angeles Times, the Pentagon sought repayment of the excess bonuses from almost 10,000 California Guard soldiers. The paper reported that many of the soldiers affected had served multiple combat deployments and had been ordered to repay bonuses plus interest.
Some had their wages garnished and tax liens slapped on them when they refused to pay. The bonus scandal was revealed after audits showed widespread overpayments.
Several soldiers and veterans told the Times that the forced repayments were causing them severe financial hardships.
Carter ordered a review of the program and charged his staff with developing a process to resolve the cases by July 1.
“Hundreds of affected guard members in California have sought and been granted relief,” Carter said. “But that process has simply moved too slowly and in some cases imposed unreasonable burdens on service members.”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama was pleased with Carter’s response. Earnest said the president wanted to “avoid a situation where service members are punished because of nefarious or fraudulent behavior by someone else.”
National Guard recruiting has been rocked by scandal in recent years. In 2014, more than 800 of its soldiers were under investigation for gaming a program that paid hundreds of millions in bonuses to members who signed up friends.
In one of the worst cases, a soldier allegedly pocketed $275,000 in illegal kickbacks.