Congress knew about bonuses for soldiers

Congress knew for two years about the Pentagon’s plan to take back reenlistment bonuses California soldiers earned for signing up to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan — but it failed to do anything to stop it, officials said.

The California National Guard told Congress about the issue in 2014 and offered up a plan that would have helped solve part of the problem, Andreas Mueller, the chief of federal policy for the state’s guard, wrote in a new Monday letter to California’s congress members.

It’s not clear if Congress understood the severity and the scope of the problem at the time, since the body took no action, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Continues