
Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses - ftrflyr
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-national-guard-bonus-20161020-snap-story.html
======
rileymat2
"Robert D’Andrea, a retired Army major and Iraq veteran, was told to return a
$20,000 bonus he received in 2008 because auditors could not find a copy of
the contract he says he signed."

How is this possible? If private businesses could do this, it would be mayhem.

~~~
dogma1138
I'm surprised that this is somehow even passed the slightest political
oversight.

You need to be a special kind of bastard to ask some one who willingly signed
up to get shot at while defending their country to pay back any amount of
money they got paid for doing so.

Wars aren't pretty, regardless of what you think about them, and especially
about Iraq and Afghanistan never ever take it out on the soldiers, they are
probably on your side because unlike most of us they actually seen war.

Soldiers don't decide when, where or against whom to go to war, they are not
at fault I never understood how the left in the US could blame people who
either got drafted (vietnam) or signed up to defend their country (post 9/11)
for the atrocities of war.

~~~
return0
My understanding is that the US has a professional army. Why are they called
"volunteers"? Over here, a volunteer is someone who voluntarily joins earlier
than required to begin his mandatory army service. People who join a job are
all volunteers of course, but that's not remarkable.

~~~
dogma1138
There are two types of military service compulsory and voluntary hence they
are called volunteers.

Compulsory involves conscription or a draft, I'm not sure how the "jail or
army" thing is classified but since you are given a choice it's technically
stelly voluntary.

The "professional" classification of the army doesn't mean it's voluntary
professional means that you can be a career soldier and you are paid for doing
so even if you are drafted, conscripts on the other hand are not paid other
than a small stipend.

That said once you sign up the contract this isn't a job, you can't quit, you
can't "call in sick", can't say no to anything, you are effectively forced to
give up certain rights for the duration of the contract.

~~~
return0
compulsory is definitely not voluntary. otoh i dont think theres any
difference between professional and voluntary.

------
QUFB
I'm not a veteran, I'm a desk jockey. I didn't like the foreign entanglements
we've been involved with over the past 15 years. But that's not the point
here.

When young men and women volunteer to fight and die for our country, and are
made promises by the system, these promises should be honored.

This behavior by the California National Guard is disgusting.

~~~
nucleardog
I don't get why it has to be at all about the role itself, the honour of the
military, or anything else.

If I'm extended an offer of employment including a $10,000 signing bonus,
sign, take the job, receive my bonus, complete the job as agreed, and the
contract expires and I go on my way... The company doesn't get to come back to
me years later and say "Oh, oops, I actually forgot to have my boss sign off
on that bonus I gave you. You need to give it back."

If you broke agreements with your financers on where/how that money was to be
spent, that's _your problem_. Our contract was still valid - you have broken
your contract with your financer and _you_ can deal with the penalties.

~~~
bww
Seriously. The people who illegally gave away the government's money should be
on the hook for repaying it. Not the people who accepted it legitimately and
in good faith.

------
CalChris
_“We’d be more than happy to absolve these people of their debts. We just
can’t do it. We’d be breaking the law.”_

Ok. There's a law, a bad law that needs to be changed. Is Congress so
dysfunctional it can't fix this monstrosity?

~~~
withdavidli
Yes. Think about the 911 bill. Taking a decade to help cover medical costs of
first responders and those that helped dig out dead bodies and hoping to find
survivors. It was so sad to see Jon Stewart talk about this years later with
only one person from the original panel because two were too ill now to show
up and one died.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3350433/John-
Stewart...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3350433/John-Stewart-s-
poignant-return-Daily-three-chairs-Former-host-Trevor-Noah-s-guest-leaves-
spaces-9-11-responders-dead-ill-join-show.html)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Kudos to Jon Stewart though. He walked the halls of Congress on his own time
after leaving the Daily Show to shame representatives into passing the bill
responsible for covering the care of first responders.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L11Bxolo44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L11Bxolo44)

------
johngalt
This smells like recruiters gaming the system while under pressure from the
top to fill quotas. In the same vein as Wells Fargo.

Hit this impossible target or you're fired. We can't tell you to lie/cheat
people to hit the numbers but we will promote the people who do and PIP the
ones who don't. Meanwhile we will go through the motions of legal compliance.

Everyone gets what they want and the higher ups can come back later and act
like it is a huge surprise to them that the people they hired and trained were
gaming the system.

------
throwawayIndian
Elsewhere, a for-profit prison extended their contract[1] with Feds barely a
month after the Department of Justice said it would end[2] contracts with
private prison operators.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/i/moments/789498562904293376](https://twitter.com/i/moments/789498562904293376)

[2] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
nation/wp/2016/08/1...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
nation/wp/2016/08/18/justice-department-says-it-will-end-use-of-private-
prisons/)

These are pretty quick u-turns by an establishment that's confident about
business as usual following elections. Gravy-train!

~~~
mikecb
This was for a DHS immigration facility, not for a prison. (Not that it makes
it any better, but it doesn't break with Justice's decision.)

------
TillE
The article doesn't quote anyone from California's Congressional delegation,
or from the White House. Is there really no reaction here? We're talking about
a few million dollars from the federal government to relieve an awful
situation.

~~~
rhizome
Personally, as a Californian I'm calling everybody on my chain-of-legislation
on Monday.

~~~
toomuchtodo
THANK YOU. Only through action does change occur.

------
erentz
It's not clear from the article how this situation came to be.

Were these soldiers told how much they would receive before enlisting? If so
surely that is a contract and they don't have to repay. It only makes sense if
they ALL received more than they were told and all didn't report it. But
~10,000 people doing this doesn't make sense.

~~~
chrismcb
From the article "Investigations have determined that lack of oversight
allowed for widespread fraud and mismanagement by California Guard officials
under pressure to meet enlistment targets."

~~~
erentz
But fraud on the part of the California Guard is an internal matter. If I form
a contract with a company that says they will pay me some amount of money, but
the company representative was committing fraud internally then too bad. The
company needs to deal with that. It can't reneg on its agreement years later
after having already fulfilled the terms of the agreement.

~~~
derekp7
If you buy a piece of electronic equipment from a dealer at a flea market, and
it is later found out that the merchandise was stolen, you have to return the
merchandise to the original owner. Even if there was a valid contract between
you and the dealer that sold it to you.

I think this is seen as something similar -- the people giving out the bonus
money basically "stole" it, so it wasn't theirs to give. Kind of like if a
sales person at a store told you "buy now and I can give you an instant
rebate", then pulled rebate money from the cash register. I think you'd have
to give that money back too (assuming the "rebate" wasn't authorized, and was
effectively stolen money).

~~~
anotheryou
But if the dealer was known he would have to reimburse me, no?

Also what if I where no longer in possession of the good?

~~~
robryk
> But if the dealer was known he would have to reimburse me, no?

Yes, but even if you've caused a judgement against him to be passed there'd
likely be nothing to collect from (because you're not the only person in such
a situation and he's likely had used the money).

------
a3n
I tell my son, his friends, and anyone who will listen: don't join the
military unless this is your calling, indicated by God's finger touching your
heart.

Because the military will treat you like shit if it's merely inconvenient to
do otherwise. VA. Guard units called up to combat for one day shy of the time
that would qualify them for combat pay. The linked article. Institutional
abuse. Forced reenlistment during questionable wars. Etc.

USN, E6, 1975-1981. Not that that gives me any particular place on the moral
ground. And for the record, I had a relatively easy time in the Navy. But even
if I'd never been in, I'd be as outraged as I am now.

------
cjslep
I imagine this only damages the USA. The next time they need heavy recruitment
numbers, people will look at the signing bonuses offered and either say "My
life is worth more than this amount" or "this amount is too good to be true,
they'll ask for it back in the future" and not sign on.

------
dbg31415
So did recruiters cut bigger checks than they were supposed to? If so, someone
had to sign off on that... either recruiters or the managers should be held
accountable.

Soldiers got contracts promising one amount but received checks for another
amount? Yeah, they should have to pay that back then.

But who wrote checks and / or promised numbers higher than the contracts?

~~~
DanBC
> Soldiers got contracts promising one amount but received checks for another
> amount? Yeah, they should have to pay that back then.

No, soldiers got promised one amount, got contracts for that amount, got paid
that amount, and now it's being clawed back because the people who did the
original promising and paperwork filing were breaking various laws.

~~~
dbg31415
Well if they have contracts for the higher amount... how is this a thing?

Unless the contracts weren't signed by someone from the government who could
sign those contracts?

How would the soldiers know if the government recruiter was legit or not...
yeah seems fucked. Government didn't supervise their recruiters correctly.
Wouldn't that make all the contracts void? Messy.

If the military needs bodies, they should just go back to drafting them. Would
help society see the true cost of policing the world instead of taking
advantage of the poor.

------
ZanyProgrammer
As an Army vet myself, the truth is is that the Army will never miss an
opportunity for fucking you over. Its the nature of the system. If you can
make it to 20 years, you are some combination of exceptional/lucky/broken from
years of fuckery.

"We just can’t do it. We’d be breaking the law"

Yeah, I'm sure the California National Guard tried _really, really_ hard not
to go after their bonuses.

~~~
apsec112
Can you go into more detail? I'm not trying to dispute what you say, but as
someone who's never been in the military, I'm curious what kind of trouble
soldiers are likely to run into.

~~~
marktangotango
Note he's talking specifically about active duty Army, not necessarily any
other branch. I can relate a story as an example.

I was enlisted in the late 90's and stationed Germany. I had a POV (personal
vehicle) that I had to license/register. I had to drive to a neighboring
facility to get to the license office. The office was closed, for some stupid
reason (they where short staffed, and someone was out sick). The Area Military
Police where in the same building, and I (stupidly) stopped a the desk
sargeant and complained. I was escorted in to see the MP Sergeant Major, who
yelled at me for a while, and took my ration card and confiscated my license
plates (for no reason other than he could bully a lower enisted).

So this all meant I had to leave my car, and take the train back to my home
base. I was late, and got into a lot of trouble for that. Then, I had to beg
and finagle to go back and get my car properly licensed a week later, when I
was supposed to have already had it done. This all contributed to me getting a
reputation as 'shit bag', do nothing low life of a private. You get a lot hell
when you have that type of reputation; a lot of 'extra duty' and unfair
treatment. Like being ordered to crawl through mud in near freezing weather,
with no change of clothes and no oppurtunity to dry off for DAYS.

But yeah, normal humans can't comprehend; fuckery. The term "fuck fuck" games
from the reddit link is very fitting.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
I was actually a reservist :) And I'm a she not he :D

------
rhapsodic
And yet we can afford to bail out Wall Street firms that pay their executives
millions in bonuses for driving their companies into the ground.

------
aplomb
Instead of hitting the soldiers who signed what they thought were reenlistment
bonuses, why don't they pommel the commanding officers who presided over these
"overpayments"?

------
Negative1
Wasn't clear from the article; did someone or a group of people break the law
so that these ("illegal") bonuses could be paid? Basically, who (or what org)
will be held accountable for this so that it won't happen again?

~~~
detaro
At least a partial answer is there, but presumably there are lot more people
involved:

> _Army Master Sgt. Toni Jaffe, the California Guard’s incentive manager,
> pleaded guilty in 2011 to filing false claims of $15.2 million and was
> sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. Three officers also pleaded guilty
> to fraud and were put on probation after paying restitution._

~~~
vacri
It's disturbing that someone whose actions have brought such heartache and
hardship to so many gets such a short sentence compared to 'blue collar'
crimes. Rob a shop with a weapon, and you harm one person and get a trivial
amount of money, but you'd be lucky to see a sentence that short.

------
fencepost
It sounds like this was not at all limited to California, just that there were
more cases there due to various reasons (population, individuals,
policies/incentives).

I'll be writing to my representative (Duckworth), both candidates to replace
her, and her Senate opponent (Kirk). I expect responses at least from the two
named since both are former military.

------
zachruss92
Honestly, this story is just sad. I understand that there was fraud involved
in order to incentivize soldiers to reenlist, but it's not their fault; It was
the people who manipulated them into reenlisting.

I definitely think in this case the government should "forgive" this debt -
and they probably will. VA benefits are already pretty flimsy, our vets have
it hard enough.

------
lucio
>>Robert D’Andrea, a retired Army major and Iraq veteran, was told to return a
$20,000 bonus he received in 2008 because _auditors_ could not find a copy of
the contract he says he signed.

>>We’d be more than happy to absolve these people of their debts. We just
can’t do it. We’d be breaking the law.

\- Stop quoting laws at us. We carry weapons

------
guelo
Not really surprised, the California Guard has been a corrupt mismanaged
scandal-plagued organization for a long time.

------
Keverw
This is so unbelievable they could mess up somthing like this. I hope this
becomes major news. These people shouldn't be paying for someone else
mistakes. If the money is mentioned in the contract, I don't see how they
could just take it because of their mistake.

------
serg_chernata
So much of war is already unapologetically about about money. This is just
adding insult to injury.

~~~
apsec112
Looking down Wikipedia's list of active conflicts
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts)),
it's hard to believe that money is a primary cause of any of them. I'm sure
someone somewhere is making a profit, but that's different from the conflict
being "about money".

~~~
Skeptique
It would be poor press to announce that a war is about money, but the veneer
of pretense is thin. The Syrian war, especially given Russia's involvement is
almost certainly about securing passage for natural gas pipelines.

Who thinks the Iraq war was actually about Freedom? That might have been the
rallying cry but it was about securing access to oil and securing massive re-
building contracts and/or reparation money. Many argue that the 1990s stock
market boom was a direct result of the US getting $10/barrel oil via the Iraq
war reparation deal, where they repaid the US for the costs of having to
attack the US.

Any war where people suddenly have an interest in saving humanity should be
viewed very skeptically, since there are hundreds of crises of freedom around
the world. If the crisis happens to be on top of a giant oil field, well, then
there may be some conflating variable.

~~~
apsec112
"The Syrian war, especially given Russia's involvement is almost certainly
about securing passage for natural gas pipelines."

Do you have a cite for that? No one on any side is building pipelines in Syria
anytime soon, because, well, war. Also, pretty sure if I told Suheil al-Hassan
or Abu Mohammad al-Julani they were fighting for natural gas pipelines, they'd
knock my teeth out.

~~~
cameldrv
I have no idea if or how much this factors in, or even if it's true, but the
story I've heard is that several years back, there was a plan for a pipeline
that would go from Qatar and Saudi Arabia through Jordan, Syria, and Turkey to
Europe. This would be a significant economic threat to Russia, since gas
exports are about $25 billion/yr, about 2% of Russia's GDP, and a big source
of hard currency, but also important is Russia's use of its gas pipelines to
Europe to threaten to cut off supplies to countries in Eastern and Central
Europe, which would not be possible if there were a gulf source of gas
available. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have a lot of gas that is going to waste or
is staying in the ground, so they could easily supply the European market.
Supposedly, Assad turned down the deal, and the civil war started shortly
after.

~~~
jcranmer
The main Russian alternative pipeline I'm aware of is Nabucco, which would be
from Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania,
Hungary, Austria and Germany. I've not been aware of any pipeline projects
from Qatar and Saudi Arabia--their natural gas is exported mostly via LNG.
Considering that, unlike oil, natural gas prices are not priced equally around
the world, and that the price for natural gas is much, much higher in Asia
than elsewhere (Europe is about 20% the price of Asia and the US about a third
to a half that of Europe (yay fracking!)), it's much more profitable for them
to export to Asia.

Edit: After doing some research, I did find that there was a proposal for a
Qatar-Turkey pipeline in 2010 (see
[https://web.archive.org/web/20120228125310/http://pipelinesi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20120228125310/http://pipelinesinternational.com/news/pipeline_projects_in_the_middle_east/040183)
). It was proposed to connect to Nabucco, which hasn't been built. The
articles that link the Syrian civil war, or more specifically Qatari
involvement in said war, contend that Qatar wants a Muslim Brotherhood
government to build the pipeline, which ignores Saudi coolness to the idea of
the pipeline (Saudi Arabia also funds rebels in the civil war) and the fact
that Qatar also funded the uprisings in Libya and Egypt, in the path of no
contended pipeline.

In other words, the idea that the Syrian civil war is mostly about gas
pipelines looks rather like people trying to find some resource that the war
must be about because they can't believe war is about anything other than
resources.

------
blazespin
Maybe this is a good thing as it will make it harder to get people to go to
war next time. Perhaps we might think twice about invading other countries.

------
AKifer
It's a scheme as old as the world, even Julius Caesar owed money to his
legions men and did not pay them.

------
WalterBright
Isn't there a statute of limitations on such belated claims?

------
cbreeden
This is weird. I'm extremely surprised that some kind of statue of limitations
does not apply here. I'm not sure we are getting the whole story.

------
Frogolocalypse
That is sickening

------
olegkikin
Sue.

------
thomasmarriott
Abhorrent.

------
cloudjacker
Idiots all the way to the top, looks like something only the President or
Congress can remedy

