Pentagon officials are ordering almost 10,000 soldiers to return reenlistment bonuses paid out a decade ago arguing the bonuses were overpayments and slapping the soldiers with interest fees and, in some cases, wage garnishments.

The Los Angeles Times has the details:

Investigations have determined that lack of oversight allowed for widespread fraud and mismanagement by California Guard officials under pressure to meet enlistment targets.

But soldiers say the military is reneging on 10-year-old agreements and imposing severe financial hardship on veterans whose only mistake was to accept bonuses offered when the Pentagon needed to fill the ranks.

“These bonuses were used to keep people in,” said Christopher Van Meter, a 42-year-old former Army captain and Iraq veteran from Manteca, Calif., who says he refinanced his home mortgage to repay $25,000 in reenlistment bonuses and $21,000 in student loan repayments that the Army says he should not have received. “People like me just got screwed.”

Our government has no business making promises to our military veterans and 10 years later saying “Oops, my bad” by charging interest and garnishing wages on bonuses our military men and women already earned for reenlisting! Click here to get involved and help Tea Party Patriots push back against big-government bureaucracy that targets the little guy!