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Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

latimes.com

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Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#31

Post by 551199 »

Skeptique wrote: post #12
apsec112 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking down Wikipedia's list of active conflicts ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict... ), 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".

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.…

Yeah, there is a reason some highly wealthy people are bank rolling both sides in wars. It's not only about the war but the aftermath is ripe for shady stuff as you can read from history books including power, rebuilding, contracts, natural resources to name few.

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#32

Post by erentz »

chrismcb wrote: post #27
erentz wrote: post #13

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.

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."

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.

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#34

Post by DanBC »

dbg31415 wrote: post #26

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?

> 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.

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#35

Post by gtaylor »

mnem wrote: post #29
dogma1138 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well, they decide when they enlist to go kill people when told to.

Some of them get out of extreme poverty or are able to go to school afterwards by enlisting. It's not as simple as that.

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#36

Post by toomuchtodo »

withdavidli wrote: post #11
CalChris wrote: post #3

“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?

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...

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

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#37

Post by 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.

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#38

Post by apsec112 »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #19

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.

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.

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#39

Post by snerbles »

dominotw wrote: post #28
ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #19

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.

Is this merely a reflection of general American population that views the army as a major drain on national resources that can be better spent elsewhere. Or is there something more sinister going on inside the National Guard.

Support from the American populace consists of flag-waving and slapping "Support our Troops" yellow ribbon magnets on their cars. Unless they're personally related to someone in the military, servicemembers and veterans are invisible at best, or seen as deranged reactionary boogiemen at worst.

EDIT: I should really note that this depends on where you live. Support is certainly more sincere in the South, over here on the West Coast people by and large don't give a shit.

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#40

Post by notwhereyouare »

CalChris wrote: post #3

“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?

Remember this is the same Congress that overruled Obama's veto and then complained afterwards that obama should have told them not to pass the bill
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