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…
While I'm certainly of the opinion that this is a ridiculous situation and those bonuses should be left alone (salary of 42 auditors alone would probably take the lion's share of the recoverable funds, independent of the moral issue), let's keep things in perspective - deployment to Iraq was not 'defending their country'. The US was never threatened by Iraq. Similarly, not everyone in Vietnam got drafted, and even if…
Some, because it's a family tradition. Others, because they believe in serving their country. And many others, because it presents them with an economic opportunity they would never otherwise have had: college, vocational training, and increased social status.
Very few join hoping to go to war. I doubt that most of the people sent to invade Iraq truly wanted to be there.
And when they went, they were sold a well-scripted dog-and-pony show about how they were defending the freedom of the Iraqi people, about how they were there to fight a horrible dictator that murdered countless innocent lives.
Those people are not to blame, and certainly not to be held responsible, for the utter failure of both our political system and our media, which is supposed to be a watchdog, not a lapdog.
Also, something most civilians don't know is that military service isn't like a regular job.
In civilian life, you can quit your job whenever you want. In the military, while you may be able to change your job and re-train for a new one, it's not that common. Also, you do your job until you finish your term of service, or you go to jail. Only way out is to be assessed by a military doctor as unfit to serve.
In civilian life, if you screw up, screw off, or screw around, the worst that will probably happen is being fired.
In the military, at best you will face Non-Judicial Punishment for minor infractions (show up late to work once), and at worst you go to jail (keep showing up late for work).
How severely punished you will be is in large part up to your boss (commanding officer).
What makes it worse is that most people only see the marketing campaign before they join (pay for college! defend freedom!). But after they enlist, they discover that they don't get the job they were promised (we're full up on surgical assistants and aircraft mechanics, so you'll be sent to train for food service), that they spend countless hours on utterly pointless work (yet another safety briefing), and that overall, the life of a service member is pretty much the opposite of glamorous.
You don't need to worship the uniform, or agree with what the US Government does, to at least appreciate that people who serve in the military are, generally speaking, at worst a bunch of well-meaning Americans that are doing the best job they can in a situation that they largely can't control.
Oh, and once you get out? Getting all that college funding and a lifetime of government healthcare ranges from "easy peasy" to "tell me again why I made a deal with the unholy spawn of Initech from Office Space and Satan's legal team"