Thousands of California National Guard soldiers will not have to pay back re-enlistment bonuses, the Pentagon announced Tuesday.
The bonuses were given out as financial incentives at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many accepted, only to receive letters later demanding the bonuses be payed back. Some were even issued tax liens as a result of the unexpected debt.
As it turned out, many of the bonuses awarded in California were done so improperly. Now, action is being taken to relieve the debt owed by National Guard soldiers who completed their enlistment contracts in good faith.
For a closer look at the Pentagon's decision, Take Two's Alex Cohen spoke with David Cloud who has written on the subject for the Los Angeles Times.
Highlights
What went wrong with the bonuses in the first place?
They were offering fairly large incentives for people to sign up for re-enlistments lasting 6 years or more— $15,000. They were also offering to repay student loans. Some of those went up to $50,000 a year, even $80,000 in some cases. And people took them in good faith. Many of the people who did take them didn't qualify under the terms to get them for various reasons. This went on for years from 2004 to 2010 at the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. And then only later, did the Pentagon or the California Guard discover that these had been handed out in this way. And then went about trying to get the money back.
What does the Pentagon's announcement mean?
The vast majority of the soldiers who got the bonuses will not have to pay the money back. Roughly 17,000 soldiers got bonuses in this period. Some of them were eligible for those. Roughly 10,000, maybe as much as 14,000 soldiers, were facing the possibility that they would have to pay it back. All but about fewer than 1,000, the Pentagon said yesterday, will now be off the hook. The 1,000 who have to pay them back are people who, for whatever reason, did not qualify for them ever, and didn't fulfill their enlistment contracts. For example, someone may have taken out $15,000 to enlist for 6 years and in some cases, people didn't fulfill that 6 year commitment. Those people will still likely have to pay the money back.
How will soldiers know if their debt has been waived?
The Pentagon says that they will send a letter over the next 4-5 months to everyone affected here. And will tell them their status and will right off the bat, tell the vast majority of them that they're off the hook. The portion of the several hundred people who still may have to pay it back will be told to go through an appeals process with something called the Army Board for Correction of Military Records. They'll look at each individual case and decide whether it's warranted to forgive the debts of those people.
Quotes edited for clarity.