Americans did not always venerate military service as they do now. Early in this republic’s history, the idea of a standing army was extremely controversial. And veterans returning from Vietnam 40 years ago were spat upon by anti-war protesters.
But society has now learned to appreciate the sacrifice of our all-volunteer forces, the people who put everything on the line to serve their country. This makes the latest scandal at the Department of Defense so outrageous.
The Los Angeles Times reported this week that the Pentagon is trying to take back re-enlistment bonuses from California National Guard members because they were improperly promised and paid. They were promised up to $15,000 when they agreed to continue in the service of their country last decade, when it mean possibly being deployed or returning to the front lines in Afghanistan or Iraq.
This happened because Army Master Sgt. Tony Jaffe, the incentive manager for the California Guard, oversaw the issuance of $15.2 million in such bonuses to 9,700 servicemembers who didn’t qualify for them. He and three others were convicted of wrongdoing five years ago, but the soldiers who received the money did not know they were ineligible. They certainly didn’t expect they’d have to pay it back. And they should not be expected to.
They did what anyone else in the situation would do. They used the money to support themselves and their families. It is likely that very few of them are able to repay such sums of money, just as few people would be if their boss came to them and suddenly demanded a large chunk of last year’s salary.
Nor is this just a California issue. As a Pentagon spokeswoman admitted to the Times, “there may be other states involved” where the department will seek to claw back payments to veterans and current service members. It just happens that the wrongdoing in California was exposed through an audit.
The Pentagon’s bureaucracy is trying to shift the blame to Congress for its clawback demand. Officials say California members of Congress were made aware of the problem two years ago. But as California’s House and Senate delegations have pointed out this week on a bipartisan basis, the Pentagon already has the authority to forgive these soldiers’ debts.
On Monday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and other House Republicans signed a letter to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter demanding that “further attempts to retrieve outstanding debt be halted.”
“These veterans, it was not their fault,” McCarthy said. “The military promised it to them … They should not go after them and this has to stop. If it doesn’t stop, we will move legislation to stop it.”
Democratic Sens. Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer made similar demands in their own letter to Carter. “The Department of Defense should use its existing authority … to waive the repayment of these enlistment bonuses.”
Both presidential candidates have chimed in, with Donald Trump complaining that “this can only happen with these incompetent people we have.” But is it just incompetence, or is it yet another case of bureaucrats wielding threats against men and women who honorably served their country in order to force Congress’s hand and get more money into their budgets?
If this sounds eerily similar to other scandals that have beset the Department of Veterans’ affairs in recent years, it’s probably not a coincidence.
Unfortunately, President Obama seems like the last person to get the memo. White House spokesman Josh Earnest’s official answer on forgiving the repayments — “I don’t think [the president is] prepared to go that far at this point” — is inadequate and unworthy of the military’s commander-in-chief.
Our armed forces are consistently obedient to a civilian leadership that doesn’t always know best. They are often asked to do far more than is reasonable with less than they need. They usually succeed anyway, and many of them die trying.
To make soldiers pay back bonuses they were promised, even if the promises was fraudulent, is wrong. The Pentagon owes it to the nation and its defenders to follow through on whatever promises were made.
A military that fails to keep its promises cannot expect to continue recruiting the quality of soldier it needs to fight and win wars. The Pentagon bean-counters should have thought of this before they began their penny-wise, pound-foolish scheme to filch a few bucks from California guardsmen’s wallets.
