I first noticed it on Facebook a day or two ago. Then retired Army colonel and former U. S. Congressman Allen West’s website confirmed that it is being reported by the Los Angeles Times.
“Short of troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade ago, the California National Guard enticed thousands of soldiers with bonuses of $15,000 or more to reenlist and go to war. Now the Pentagon is demanding the money back. Nearly 10,000 soldiers, many of whom served multiple combat tours, have been ordered to repay large enlistment bonuses — and slapped with interest charges, wage garnishments and tax liens if they refuse — after audits revealed widespread overpayments by the California Guard at the height of the wars last decade. 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.”[1]
My first reaction to this story is that it is yet another example of one of my life’s maxims, “Government does nothing well.” While it is true that there are certain functions only government can discharge, there is no function that government discharges well. It is the very nature of bureaucracy to function poorly, and the latest example of bureaucratic stupidity is the decision handed down by the drones in the Pentagon to force enlistment bonuses to be repaid ten years after the contracts were signed. As Col West asked, “Who in God’s name will serve in uniform after what the Pentagon is demanding now?” Of course, Col. West is spot on. He usually is about such things. Since matters such as these are little more than perception, perception, perception, and since only the naïve would suggest that this was not an intentional move by the administration to discourage future enlistments and create bad morale among the serving troops, this can clearly be seen for what it is.
Take a step back to survey a wider field of view. This inane decision by the Pentagon with the approval of the commander-in-thief is another of those recurring moves calculated to undermine the rule of law in the United States. The goal is to create distrust forever in the ranks of the serving military about the willingness of the nation they serve to honor duly signed and served contracts for service in the armed forces. There have been many examples of such lawlessness over the last eight years, too many for me to recount here. But let me remind you of the first time I noticed the undermining of the rule of law in the United States. Of course, it took place here in California.
California started the revolution when it passed the first no-fault divorce statute in 1969. The state is now a pure no-fault state, meaning that neither spouse may place blame on the other spouse when filing for divorce. Instead, couples may divorce if the couple claims “irreconcilable differences.” Sadly, it was Ronald Reagan who signed that bill into law when it was presented to him by the California legislature. Thought to have the potential to free people from terrible marriages, few people paid attention to another law unleashed by the no-fault divorce law, the law of unintended consequences. The no-fault divorce law began the erosion of the rule of law in California by tossing out the legal recourse that could be pursued by a spouse whose partner in marriage had violated the most important contract that two adults could enter into. Think about that for a moment. What contract between two people is more important to them than the marriage contract? And what contract is more important to a civil society than the marriage contract? With a single signature, the consequences of violating the most important of agreements between human beings were swept away under the nonsensical justification of “irreconcilable differences.”
Used to be you could sue in a civil action anyone you could prove had alienated the affection of your husband or wife, or your son or daughter for that matter. The cost of adultery was high back in the day. Not that adultery was not committed, but there was legal recourse then available to those who had been wronged by the infidelity of a spouse, with the other party in the adultery subject to being sued. A corollary to the legal sanctity of marriage was the ability of parents to sue someone who had led their underage child astray. I know people who would love to have been able to sue a young man for alienating the affections of their foolish daughter. If character could not force a young man to conduct himself properly with a couple’s silly daughter then garnishing his wages for a few years just might do the trick.
Alas, the rule of law has taken some very serious hits in the last few years. The legal contract establishing a marriage is no longer protected by law. Contracts written by the government and signed by enlisted personnel are no longer honored, or at least no longer appear to be honored. This is no surprise to us. We have become a nation of cynics. No longer do most of us have any real expectation our president will be faithful to his wife, that secretaries of state will have any allegiance to protect the lives of their ambassadors, or that troops who risk their lives as instruments of government policy will be looked after when they return home alive but damaged.
There is a word for this ever-increasing tendency to break faith with those you have given your word to, whether it is a commitment to love and honor till death do you part or a contract you present to a boy to risk his life to execute your policy decisions. The word is covenantbreakers, and it is found in Romans 1.31. And in case you are fearful that God is going to judge you for being a covenant breaker or for being a citizen in a nation of covenant breakers, there is no need to worry. You see, God’s judgment has already begun because covenant breakers are consequences of God’s judgment not causes of God’s judgment.
