Commentary: Plenty of blame — and penance — to go around in California Guard bonus mess

Editor's note: The following is an opinion piece. The writer is not employed by Military Times and the views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Military Times or its editorial staff.

Expressing shock and outrage at the recently illuminated California National Guard bonus recoupment scandal is not enough for the various pillars of the defense policy network in Washington to make this right. And while many of those affected will settle for a halt to the debt collection nightmare that has been leveled upon them, the public should demand much deeper penance out of Washington.



The scandal, first brought to national attention by an expose in the Los Angeles Times, revealed what seems to have amounted to a bait-and-switch scheme perpetrated by the California National Guard in which thousands of service members were enticed into staying in, at least in part, by sizable cash bonuses. But instead of limiting those offers only to those who met certain qualifications, the Guard used the incentive to retain thousands troops more and keep its numbers up at a time when the pressure was on to maintain a solid force strength.
After the targets and recipients of these bonuses re-signed with the Guard and fulfilled their end of the bargain, the Guard determined it had improperly offered the bonuses to begin with and began what at times amounted to a vicious recoupment operation against the service members and veterans. In the National Guard’s defense, the obligation to recoup the mistaken payments was in line with the letter of the law. However, the discovery of such a dilemma should have immediately triggered a set of actions that would have prevented the situation from escalating to the level of ruining lives and straining veterans and military families to their financial breaking point.



A number of key questions now present themselves about why this shameful scandal advanced as far as it did. Why, for example, did neither the Pentagon, nor Congress, nor advocacy groups forcefully raise this issue years ago and demand an immediate solution? Surely at least one or two of these impacted service members and veterans told someone about the dire issue they were facing and reached out for help.



While outrage and demands of action are all well and good after the fact, service member and veteran advocacy organizations are supposed to function as identifiers and articulators of issues within their respective communities before they bubble up to become national scandals. As was the case with Veterans Affairs Department health care access and secret waiting lists, the advocacy community seems to have again failed by not catching and correcting this before it began destroying lives and livelihoods.
Similarly culpable are individual congressional offices whose constituents this scandal impacted, as well as Congress as a whole. Members of Congress have state and district offices and constituent service representatives for the purpose of doing congressionally assisted casework on precisely such matters, and casework should form one of the bases of legislative policy proposals for all congressional offices.





It is hard to believe that none of the thousands of individuals and family members impacted in California and around the country ever contacted a lawmaker. And if one did, why did no congressional office ever demand recoupment cessation long ago, or put forth a bill to enable it if the Pentagon could not do it of its own accord?



Then we have the Pentagon itself. Surely many people within the Defense Department knew this was going on, as it was DoD personnel who had made the improper bonus offers to begin with, later discovered the issue, and then carried out aggressive recoupment activities.

Every year the Pentagon submits hundreds of proposals for legislative tweaks in defense law know as policy transmittals as part of its budget proposal process. Why did the secretary of defense never ask for a change in law to allow it to do the right thing by these service members and veterans?



In the wake of scandals like this, such questions are nearly as numerous as the expressions of outrage and shock from those responsible. Yet they are rarely answered and, therefore, responsibility and accountability are all too often elusive.
This inevitably leads to recurrences, but these are certainly avoidable if the defense and veterans policy ecosystems are functioning properly.



Fortunately, the media stepped in once again and forced Washington to finally act on yet another problem that has been festering for years. But rather than continuing to play whack-a-mole, all stakeholders should accept responsibility for their fair share of this collective failure and work on improving the process for identifying and nipping these issues in the bud before they become next month’s or year’s national headlines.



Alexander Nicholson is a political consultant, strategist and published author based in Washington, D.C. He previously worked in veterans and defense policy advocacy for 10 years.