“Their numbers were down. They needed to retain people, qualified people,” Strother said, especially those who had been in the Mideast.
Strother jumped at the chance for the extra cash and a promise to pay off his student loans during the meeting at Fairfield Armory in Chico led by a one-star general and attended by 300 other veterans.
But he — and many others — got quite the shock when they finished that tour of duty and the government wanted its bonus money back. In Strother’s case, he was asked to pay back $25,000 for the bonus and his student loans. It turns out the California National Guard was not supposed to offer the money.
On Wednesday, after national outcry about the practice, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told the Pentagon to stand down and stop asking some 10,000 California National Guard troops to repay the bonuses.
“Ultimately, we will provide for a process that puts as little burden as possible on any soldier who received an improper payment through no fault of his or her own,” Carter said in his statement.
Carter said all collection efforts have been suspended and military officials would work on streamlining the process. A day before several House Republican leaders in California signed a letter calling for the Pentagon to stop the collection of bonuses given out in error.
The bonuses were offered to soldiers who would re-enlist for service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers were offered $15,000 bonuses, according to several National Guardsmen who were on active duty between 2003 and 2012.
Former Army Master Sgt. Toni Jaffe, the California Guard’s incentive manager during that time, pleaded guilty to filing false claims and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison.
While all that is good news to Strother, he says he still plans to pursue a federal lawsuit he filed in February of this year.
“I was given that amount of money, then all of a sudden it became a matter of voiding my contract,” he said.
About six months after filing the suit, Strother received a letter from the government saying he fulfilled his contractual obligations but he still owed the government up to $5,000 for the student loans it had covered under the bonus program.
Despite all the headache Strother endured, he recently re-enlisted for another six-year contract with the National Guard in order to avoid any penalties for the student loan payments hanging over his head.
Daniel Willman, Strother’s lawyer, said the recent decision from the Pentagon is “not a remedy for the problem, but more a suspension of their actions in going after money from these veterans.”
“The contractual obligations in question were followed in good faith,” Willman said. “We want to trigger a class-action lawsuit.”
A representative for the California National Guard did not immediately return a call from the paper.
Congressman Doug LaMalfa said the recent National Defense Authorization Act, which has not passed through the Senate, does address the matter of asking for soldiers to pay back bonuses. The fact the Pentagon went after veterans in the first place is wrong and unacceptable, LaMalfa said
“This was a screw-up on a federal level,” LaMalfa said. “What we have to make sure we do is get those veterans who have paid something back — to get their money back.”
LaMalfa noted the National Guard did not have the authority to forgive the bonuses or to change the enlistment policies.
Strother said his lawsuit is not about money, but about the policies in place that entice soldiers to enlist and then bill them later.
“I risked my life for those payments,” Strother said. “I had just returned from Middle East for deployment within the year before going back. I had a young daughter who couldn’t even remember her last name when I came back. It was hard and I fulfilled that in good faith.”
About Nathan Solis
Source: www.redding.com
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