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National Guard Members Feel Betrayed Over Pentagon Repayment Demands

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - Thousands of CA National Guard soldiers are being asked by the Pentagon to give back money they received in bonuses.

These bonuses of $15,000 and more were given out to soldiers as an incentive to join or re-enlist and go to war.

It's an issue that started nearly six years ago in 2011, but is now garnering more media attention.

It started out as a fraud scheme, that actually landed some military members in jail, and others were reprimanded internally or removed from service.

Now the real fight is for the thousands of innocent soldiers, who are the one's having to literally pay the price.

"When I first got the letter, I was angered and then felt betrayed," said Todd Percival.

Percival says he was enjoying life, after being honorably discharged from the CA National Guard with six years of service under his belt from 2006 to 2012, only to come home one day to a disturbing letter.

"I opened the letter and it said I owe them $20,000 and I have 30 days to pay them back, so I started making phone calls to figure out what's going on," said Percival.

Nearly 10,000 soldiers like Percival have received such letters. Many of these solders have served multiple combat tours and are being ordered to repay their re- enlistment bonuses with interest, after audits revealed that there were widespread over payments by the CA National Guard.

"I just feel that I was let down," he said.

The bonuses were only supposed to be paid out to soldiers in high demand assignments that were needed in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time.

But a 2010 Federal investigation showed that these bonuses were given to CA guardsmen who didn't qualify.

"The majority of these kids are young soldiers who took this money thinking it was appropriate to take it, and it turned out not to be the case. And those are the folks were trying to help right now," said Major. Gen. Matthew Beevers.

The investigation also revealed that thousands of people who actually deserved these bonuses never got them.

So in the past few years, the CA Guard has worked to get $37.2 million for 4,000 soldiers who were never paid what they deserved. Now the guard's focus is on working with congress to get debts resolved for the soldiers who inadvertently got bonuses.

"We're doing absolutely everything we can to energize this process and get this corrected," said Major Beevers.

Meanwhile, Percival has been fighting his own fight; and after one year of going to war now with the military, he finally got his justice, spelled out in a second letter.

"They went back and reviewed the case and came to the conclusion that I had nothing to do with it, I fulfilled my contract," he said.

Percival no longer has to pay back his $20,000 bonus. And now he's hoping other deserving soldiers are just as fortunate.

He says, "If you got a letter in the mail, and you believe you're innocent, then fight, fight for the truth."

The CA National Guard says while they're helping soldiers on a case by case basis, offering legal and accounting advice, this issue can only be resolved on the federal level.

They're hopeful that Congress and the Secretary of the Army will come up with a good resolution soon.

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