National Guard Seeks Federal Aid For Soldiers Told To Return Bonuses

Had you repaint a $20,000 citing but as the National Guard gave you for serving in Iraq? For most California National Guard veterans the answer is very slowly. With a deep sense of having been betrayed the government says nearly 10,000 National Guard veterans have been asked to pay back signing bonuses. The Pentagon says they were made an error. Joining me is Steve Walsh. This is a terrible story. We contacted the California National Guard but they could make no one available for comment. We know that you know the operations behind this so we asked you to be with us. When were these bonuses issued to National Guard soldiers and how much were they? This happened back in 2006 and 2007. Just a background I was in Iraq a couple of times embedded with the Indiana National Guard so I know where these guys are coming from . This is the worst parts of the war. 2007 this is still a time when about half of the soldier serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are national guardsmen. The National Guard is -- they turnover almost completely during the two wars. The entire force which is out. They were losing a lot of people and losing a lot of people even to private contractors. I remember being there and talking with guardsmen driving around in trucks and they are talking the contractors and they are making something like $80,000 to do the very same job. So the National Guard was bleeding personnel in several different ways. So it was around this time where apparently many of the soldiers in California were called into these mass recruiting seminars and they said we have these large bonuses if you want to come back for another six years. That's when many of him decided we will stick with him. You have to understand that the guard at one point -- I remember when I was in Iraq in 2005 and you had Vietnam vets that were still in their. You had ¬50 out for still there. So they are really helping it to try to re-up the people that they have been recruit new people because many of them are are behind. Savior was in 2006 and 2007 they said they were offered these six-year bonuses and it turns out that many of them did not qualify. They see that now. How did that get mixed up because obviously when they were given the bonuses they thought they qualified. So there was a actual court case back in 2010 where an Army master Sergeant was actually convicted. He pled guilty in 2011 for filing false claims for something like $15.2 million worth of fraudulent benefits and then sentenced to 30 months in prison. At that point, from the stories it appears as if they were offering these bonuses on a wide scale and that they were coming back later to figure out whether or not they actually did qualify. This is the government's mistake. Why are Iraq and Afghanistan veterans from the National Guard are they being asked to pay the bonuses back? There -- why is this coming all the way down to the vets? That is what people are asking? The California National Guard has said that they would forgive these tests if they could. So you have to understand with the National Guard even though they have this tool roll that the state and national most of their funding comes from the federal government so this is incentives were federal money. It is up to the federal government to make this decision. There is a process that you can go through that individuals can go through to work this out. It appears to be a very long and arduous process. You might have to get an attorney. Some people according to Los Angeles times have been fighting this for years and some of given up and said $25,000 is a real hardship but I can't fight this anymore so they started repaying it. You made the point that they been fighting this for years. First request for repayment letters were now about two years or longer ago WISE this story getting so much attention right now? That is where those questions. Why is it now? Went out to say we credit the Los Angeles times. They put together this and one story and many have left the National Guard and living in other parts of the country. They tracked him down and put the story one place and you saw a wave -- Susan Davis issued a statement saying the forever government needs to take action and now their talk of bills in Congress to try to remedy this and try to forget this money. Many of these people bring up into the guard but then did feature -- more combat. So these are multiple combat vets. California National Guard itself says it cannot just waive these payments. Do we know if they are actually doing anything to try to get the government and the people that can waive these payments to do anything? They set up a process -- is also a system that is set up in each county in California can help people work on their benefits and give new benefits or challenge some of these that have,. There are couple of different people have there who can help them. Ultimately it sounds like this might be up to Congress. If they want to forgive this money to this all-in-one time it's going to be up to Congress. Many lawmakers had made statements have there been any movement. There is one bill to make that happen. It is an election year and this will be a lame duck Congress at this point. The wheels do not turn quickly but we have seen in other cases that sometimes there can be roll movement and they can move rather quickly when they want to. I've been speaking with Steve Walsh. Thank you very much.