The Navy Times reports in Congress tries to fix GI Bill for reservists:
A bipartisan bill to fix a glitch in GI Bill eligibility that has denied thousands of National Guard and reserve members the right to bigger education benefits has run into an unexpected hurdle — a $33 million price tag.
At issue is a fluke in a law intended to make Guard and reserve members eligible for GI Bill payments at active-duty rates if they were mobilized for a minimum of 20 months in support of a contingency operation. Members of a Minnesota National Guard unit discovered in July that after 22 months of duty, including 16 in combat, they were ineligible because of the wording of their mobilization orders.
The bill, HR 3882, is aimed at correcting this problem.
When the unit returned last summer, 1,162 members of the Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, were found ineligible for active-duty GI Bill benefits because their mobilization orders did not clearly state they were being call up for 730 or more days, one of the criteria used to determine eligibility.
The bill would fix this, retroactive to Sept. 11, 2001, by modifying the wording so it would apply to someone called up for any period of three years or less. Unchanged would be the requirement to serve 20 continuous months of active service and to pay a $1,200 enrollment fee to receive active-duty GI Bill benefits, which are about $200 a month more than reserve GI Bill benefits for those with less than three years of active service.
Lawmakers had hoped to quickly pass the bill, but the cost estimate would slow things down. . . .
Go read the rest.
On a related note, the Walz office put out a press release about the approval of H.R. 3882, the Fair Benefits for Guard and Reserve Act by the Veteran's Affairs Committee. The bill is co-authored by John Kline.
The statement:
Today, the House of Representatives Veterans' Affairs Committee unanimously passed legislation authored by Congressman Tim Walz and fellow Minnesota Representative John Kline to modernize G.I. benefits for National Guard troops. H.R. 3882, the Fair Benefits for Guard and Reserve Act, will amend the Montgomery G.I. Bill by altering the requirements for receiving Chapter 30 G.I. Bill benefits. This bipartisan legislation has 57 Democratic and 57 Republican co-sponsors, including every member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee and the entire Minnesota delegation.
"When the Montgomery G.I. Bill was written, no one could have imagined the current role that the Guard and Reserve play in combat operations," Walz said. "The enhanced role the Reserve Component has played in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan forces us to reevaluate the benefits Guard and Reserve service members receive."
"When members of the 1/34th Brigade Combat Team returned from Iraq, many of them found that they were not eligible for expanded education benefits due to a technicality. This bill provides those service members, and others like them, the benefits they deserve," Walz, a former Command Sgt. Major with the 1/34th Brigade Combat Team, said. "I'm pleased that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle agree that it is necessary to modernize the G.I. Bill for the benefit of our men and women in uniform."
In order to qualify for Chapter 30, Active Duty educational benefits under the GI bill, soldiers must serve at least 20 months on Active Duty and must be ordered to Active Duty for 730 days or longer. H.R. 3882 amends the Montgomery G.I. Bill to ensure that soldiers that have served for 20 months receive Active-Duty level education benefits, regardless of whether or not they were ordered to duty for 730 days.
In addition to authoring H.R. 3882, Congressman Walz has receive personal assurances from Secretary Gates that the Army is doing everything that it can to ensure that members of the 1/34th Brigade Combat Team (BCT) of the Army National Guard receive the benefits they deserve. The Department of Defense has dispatched teams of Army experts over the last few weeks to assist members of the 1st BCT at Walz's request and has been tasked with resolving all cases within ten days of receiving each soldier's paperwork.
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