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Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Bonus? Kidding!
Posted by Jill | 6:38 AM

I don't want to hear ever again some moron apologist for the Bush Administration that those who don't support the Administration don't support the troops.

Because THIS is what their precious leaders are doing to National Guard troops:

The Pentagon has reneged on its offer to pay a $15,000 bonus to members of the National Guard and Army Reserve who agree to extend their enlistments by six years, according to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Seattle).

The bonuses were offered in January to Active Guard and Reserve and military technician soldiers who were serving overseas. In April, the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs ordered the bonuses stopped, Murray said.

“This is outrageous,” the senator said in a telephone interview. “It makes me angry that this administration has broken another promise to our troops.”

A Pentagon spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, confirmed the bonuses had been canceled, saying they violated Pentagon policies because they duplicated other programs. She said Guard and Reserve members would be eligible for other bonuses.

Krenke said some soldiers had been paid the re-enlistment bonuses, but she was unsure how many or whether the money would have to be repaid. Murray’s office said that as far as it knew, no active Guard or Reserve members had received the bonuses.

A Murray spokeswoman, Alex Glass, said Krenke’s explanation was unacceptable.

“They can spin it anyway they want,” Glass said. “But this is a promise they are trying to explain away.”

The bonus offer was part of the Pentagon’s effort to retain Guard and Reserve members at a time of declining enlistments in the regular Army.

Army officials have said they face the toughest recruiting climate since 1973, when the draft was dropped and replaced with an all-volunteer military.

Roughly 3,400 members of the Washington National Guard’s 81st Armor Brigade were serving in Iraq at the time the bonuses were offered.

The bonuses were tax-free because they involved soldiers stationed overseas.

“As in the private sector, bonuses are quite effective in keeping talented people with high demand skills,” Krenke said in an e-mail response to questions.

Murray, a leading Capitol Hill critic of management of the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs, said she didn’t know why the bonuses were dropped but suspected it was connected to the tight federal budget.

“It feels like every day I wake up to something else gone wrong,” she said. “And it all goes back to this administration not planning adequately for the Iraq war.”


It's hard to imagine that this Administration could be more cruel to these people. It's bad enough that they're fighting in a war that should be beyond the purview of the National Guard. It's bad enough that they're being given stop-loss orders so that they're unable to leave until they come home in a box. But to promise monetary rewards for extending their enlistment and then saying "Just kidding! You fucked up! You trusted us!" is beyond the pale.

Maybe that's why we have six Iraq war veterans now running for Congress -- as Democrats.

(hat tip: Atrios)
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