- In most cases, when an employer pays a signing bonus to attract new workers, that payment is understood to be essentially unrecoverable. But the Pentagon has a different understanding — and it's ordering the California National Guard to claw back thousands of dollars paid to soldiers who reenlisted to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And in many cases, an employer would also have a tough time arguing that decade-old lapses in its own oversight should trigger wage garnishments and tax liens against its workers. But again, this is the U.S. military, and its officials say the law requires them to reclaim the overpayments.
That's the gist of a report by The Los Angeles Times, which says nearly 10,000 soldiers are now scrambling to pay back signing bonuses that helped the Pentagon cope with the task of using an all-volunteer service to fight two prolonged international conflicts.
As someone who served in the Army National Guard in this timeframe (but never deployed), I hated "support the troops." My opinion was it was mostly baby boomers who now in their fifties were embarrassed at their lack of support during Vietnam. But most insulting was they were always magnets. They supported the troops as long as it didn't damage the finish on their car.
I was talking with this girl when I lived in Alberta who's boyfriend was a veteran in Texas and she was lamenting how he really didn't get any help to deal with his PTSD down there. She also had a friend here who was given counselling and was actually given a check at the end of it. We weren't sure why he was given a check but I'm fairly certain it's because if he had still been working those appointments would have been during work hours. I figured that out because when my friend who had never been deployed told his doctor he was an alcoholic and needed help he was put into counselling that happened during his regular work day. He was also put into a program that was either a month or two where he only did counselling and was paid his regular salary. I do wonder how that would play out in the states. It always made the "support our troops" stuff seem very superficial.