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Lawmakers: Calif. Guard troops won’t have to repay bonuses

Brian Leiser, bottom, of Valley Springs, Calif., leads a group of soldier off an airplane Monday, Jan. 16, 2006, at Sacramento International Airport in Sacramento, Calif. Leiser and other members of the California National Guard 1st Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment returned home after an 18-month Iraq deployment. (JOAN BARNETT LEE / AP)
By Richard Lardner Associated Press
Brian Leiser, bottom, of Valley Springs, Calif., leads a group of soldier off an airplane Monday, Jan. 16, 2006, at Sacramento International Airport in Sacramento, Calif. Leiser and other members of the California National Guard 1st Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment returned home after an 18-month Iraq deployment. (JOAN BARNETT LEE / AP)

WASHINGTON – House and Senate negotiators have agreed to forgive the debts of thousands of California National Guard troops who had been ordered by the Pentagon to repay enlistment bonuses. Those bonuses had been incentives for service in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade ago.

A provision in the annual defense policy bill to be filed Wednesday requires the Pentagon to waive the recoupment of a bonus unless there is evidence showing service members “knew or reasonably should have known” that they weren’t eligible to receive the money.

A vote in the House on the must-pass defense bill is expected by Friday, followed by action in the Senate next week.

The Guard offered enlistment bonuses of as much as $15,000 and student loan aid at the height of the two wars in the 2000s.