# USA Deserters STILL Getting Paid



## The Bread Guy (29 Aug 2006)

Ooopsie.....

http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-06-848R

Over the past several years, we have reported examples of hundreds of Army National Guard and Army Reserve (Army Guard and Reserve) soldiers who received inaccurate and untimely payroll payments due to a labor-intensive, error-prone pay process; human capital weaknesses; and the lack of integrated pay and personnel systems. As part of that work, we reported several cases for which mobilized Army Reserve soldiers never reported for active duty and improperly received pay that they did not earn. 

(...)

*We confirmed that at least seven Army Reserve soldiers assigned to the 1004th Quartermaster Company, located in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, did not report for active duty in December 2003 in accordance with their orders. During the following 8-month period, they cumulatively improperly accepted $195,000 of military pay. The Army Reserve did not stop improper military pay to these soldiers until we notified Reserve officials in August 2004 during a prior assignment.* Even after our notification, one of the seven soldiers continued to be paid for an additional 8 months and accepted a total of about $58,000 in improper payments, including about $28,000 for the later 8-month period. We found no evidence that arrest warrants had been filed against any of the seven soldiers as of May 2006. *Our limited investigation showed that at least 68 additional soldiers, 38 with the Army Guard and 30 with the Army Reserve, received improper and potentially fraudulent pay, estimated at $684,000, while in a deserter status. This number and amount likely significantly understates the number and amount the Department of Defense (DOD) paid to Army Guard and Reserve soldiers in deserter status.* Army, Army Guard, and Reserve officials acknowledged that they were unaware of the extent to which Army Guard and Reserve soldiers in deserter status improperly received potentially fraudulent military pay. They explained that determining the extent to which soldiers charged with desertion continue to receive improper payments is difficult for several reasons. First, initiating and processing desertion cases depend upon unit commanders preparing timely manual paperwork. Second, there is no central database that electronically stores this paperwork. Without these data, military leaders do not have readily available aggregate data affording visibility over the number of desertion cases initiated. Additionally, they do not have a readily available tool to match against pay data to ensure that soldiers in deserter status have not been paid. Knowingly keeping unearned military pay is potentially fraud. Additionally, many of the 75 cases (7 cases from the 1004th Quartermaster Company and the 68 other cases) of Army Guard and Reserve soldiers in deserter status that we identified as having received unearned pay may have willfully converted the pay to their own use, which is punishable by a maximum confinement of 10 years. For example, *six of the seven Reserve soldiers who were assigned to the 1004th Quartermaster Company admitted to us that they received unearned military pay when we initially interviewed them in late 2004. Of these six, five told us that they had spent the money and one said she had put the money in a separate bank account. Although we confirmed that the seventh soldier also received unearned military pay, she advised us that she thought that the money she had received was an educational benefit.* Subsequently, between April 2005 and September 2005, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) sent the first debt collection letter to each soldier asking for repayment of the unearned pay. Little has been repaid thus far. DFAS information shows that about 9 percent of the estimated $195,000 in improper payments had been repaid as of May 2006. Two of the seven soldiers had not yet made any repayments. Arrest warrants had been issued for 51 of the 75 soldiers. Regarding the soldiers from the 1004th Quartermaster Company, USADIP had no record of arrest warrants. However, 1 of the 7 soldiers voluntarily surrendered to military authorities and received an other than honorable discharge from the military in December 2005 in lieu of a court-martial. Thus, all 51 arrest warrants applied to the 68 other deserter cases we identified. As of May 11, 2006, 18 of the 51 had been apprehended by civilian authorities, 2 soldiers had voluntarily surrendered to military authorities, and 31 soldiers remained at large.


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## Trinity (29 Aug 2006)

Hrm...  I'm a deserter and you're paying me.  I'm not telling the government they made a mistake.
And why not spend it... you're already in trouble with the government   ;D ;D


At least one woman was smart and put the money aside.


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## Red 6 (29 Aug 2006)

It seems hard to believe, but every word of this story is likely true. Each state National Guard headquarters processes and disburses its own pay for Soldiers assigned. Why ther National Guard doesn't have a centralized pay system is tough to figure out, but that's how it is.


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## geo (29 Aug 2006)

And our reservists thought they had a bad pay system (past tense).....


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## dapaterson (31 Aug 2006)

See: http://www.cbc.ca/news/reportsfromabroad/champblog/ (30 Aug entry)



> The General Accountability Office is the investigative arm of Congress.
> 
> Its latest report says the Pentagon has been paying deserters. At least $900,000 US went to 75 army reservists who have not reported for duty since late in 2001.
> 
> ...



Anyone seen any more on this story?


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## Cloud Cover (23 Sep 2006)

Too funny- this fucking numpty's lawyer misses a paperwork deadline, so now he decides he has to go home and "face [his] demons." 

Question though- if  he was scraping by, then I guess he wasn't being paid as indicated in the rest of the thread?

Reproduced from the cnn.com website under the Fair Dealings Provisions of the Copyright Act.


Army deserter will return to face consequences
POSTED: 11:04 a.m. EDT, September 23, 2006 
Adjust font size:
LEXINGTON, Kentucky (AP) -- A soldier who fled to Canada two years ago after serving in Iraq said he would return home to face consequences from the U.S. Army.

"I decided that I've got to go back and get this over with once and for all, instead of living in limbo up here forever," Darrell Anderson told the Lexington-Herald Leader for Saturday's edition from Toronto.

Anderson, 24, served seven months in Iraq with the 1st Armored Division. He received a Purple Heart after being wounded by a roadside bomb. But he said he quickly became disillusioned with the war.

Anderson, who arrived in Canada by way of Niagara Falls in January 2005, had hoped to build a new life north of the border. *But his Canadian attorney missed a deadline for filing paperwork to have him declared a refugee, which would have allowed him to remain in the country.

He said that not only meant he could not qualify for a government work permit -- which he had to have to get a job -- it also opened the possibility that Canadian authorities might deport him, even though he had married a Canadian woman.*
He said he's been scraping along, working odd jobs, relying on the generosity of Canadian friends and help from his family in the United States.

This summer, Anderson was among a group of American military deserters visited by "peace mom" Cindy Sheehan, who was in Canada to support sanctuary for those fleeing the U.S. military.

Now, Anderson said he is planning to turn himself in to a special processing unit at Fort Knox for soldiers absent without leave and accept whatever punishment he's given.

"I just decided that I've got to face my demons, put on my uniform, and go back and tell the Army that I don't want to participate in this war," he said. "I feel like I have to tell them face to face. I have to make my stand once and for all."

After reviewing Anderson's record, the commander could order a less-than-honorable discharge or refer the case to a court-martial, which could impose a prison term and a dishonorable discharge, said Fort Knox spokeswoman Gini Sinclair.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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## The Bread Guy (23 Sep 2006)

Good one - I'm guessing that the clamping down may have came just before GAO issued its report (came out around end of July 2006).

Then again, it's not impossible that if he was getting direct deposit, he may have been reluctant to use an ATM until making himself undeportable, no?


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