Veteran News

The GI Bill is high on the legislative agenda in Congress this year, with a number of proposals in play to improve the venerable education benefits program.

Suggestions range from giving all service members the right to transfer unused benefits to family members, to vastly improving payments to fully cover the costs of a four-year college or university.

Joseph Nannery of Fremont served eight years as a Marine before enlisting in the National Guard in 2001, and in March 2004, he was deployed as an infantry squad leader to Iraq.

When he returned home in February 2005, it had been 16 years since he attended school.

Working full time as a project analyst for a green residential building contractor in Santa Clara, he attends Ohlone College at night to fulfill his undergraduate requirements. He hopes to pursue a degree in environmental studies at San Jose State University. He would like to then earn a law degree.

But Nannery found that the GI Bill, set up after World War II to help veterans pay for college, was falling short.

Evan Aanerud had two dreams in life - to become a Marine, and to earn a college degree. While he fulfilled the first, by joining the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves and serving in Iraq, the second has been more of a nightmare. The San Luis Obispo resident thought he could count on financial aid provided under the G.I. Bill, but was shocked to find out that reservists receive funding at a sharply reduced rate.

Evan is one of thousands of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan being shortchanged in their pursuit of a college education because of the severe restrictions and limitations of the current G.I. Bill. The sad reality is that while the cost of an education has increased, the benefits available to veterans have decreased.

Consider that the maximum educational benefit available to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan is just $1,101 per month, or $39,636 over four years. Those veterans who served combat tours with the National Guard or Reserves are eligible for even less - typically just $440 per month. In contrast, the College Board reports that the average four-year public college costs more than $65,000 for an in-state student, while a private university costs upward of $133,000.

Halsey Bernard made it through a tour in Iraq as a machine gunner. The question for him now is will he make it through the University of Massachusetts.

More stories like thisIt isn't a question of academics for the 24-year-old Boston resident. It's about money - and about the obligation of a nation to its fighting men and women. Bernard, who served with the Second Battalion Eighth Marines in Nasariyah, Iraq, in 2003, is one of thousands of veterans who have returned from combat service only to find that their GI Bill college benefits fall far short of actual costs.

"What they tell you on TV and what the recruiters tell you when you go to sign up is: 'Don't worry. College is taken care of.' And it is not true," said Bernard. "Today it is a serious financial struggle and bureaucratic struggle and personal struggle to try to go to college after serving in combat."

In Iraq and Afghanistan they've battled insurgents and built schools. But when it comes to enrolling in school themselves, many of today's veterans are facing an unexpected fight – the fight to stay afloat amid mounting college costs.

It's time for a revamped GI Bill, say veterans' organizations and scores of US legislators. Like their World War II counterparts, the men and women making sacrifices in the "war on terror" should be rewarded with benefits that cover the full cost of education, they say. As a bonus to society, they tout the prospect of long-term economic gains and a steadier stream of good recruits.

New York State Gov. Eliot Spitzer deserves the highest praise for his powerful commitment to the thousands of New York citizen soldiers fighting in the Iraq and Afghanistan war theaters. In his State of the State address this month, he proposed guaranteeing a full-tuition scholarship to these heroic men and women, so that they may attend any State University of New York or City University of New York college or university upon their return.

Mr. Spitzer's initiative should serve as a paradigm for what our nation must do for this new generation of veterans. They have sacrificed so much for us. We owe them honor, respect and the opportunity for a brighter future. We owe them a new GI Bill assuring them a college education.

J K is a perfect illustration of the point he continues to make: America should honor its returning veterans with the promise of a paid-for college education, not just out of a sense of obligation, but because the country will benefit.

J K, best known as one of the "K"s in KKR, the investment firm, served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Many veterans returning from that war "had never dreamed of going to college," he has said. But thanks to the GI Bill that Congress passed in 1944, Kohlberg was able to earn an undergraduate degree from Swarthmore and graduate degrees from Harvard and Columbia.

He and millions of others emerged from college as professionals with better salaries and better opportunities. They transformed industries from technology to finance and generated a tidal wave of new tax revenue.

The extent to which today's combat veterans are succeeding in their education plans is hard to tell. Available data can't tell the whole story but do raise some questions: Though 95% of active-duty service members sign up for the GI Bill (which costs $1,200), as many as 29% of those who are eligible when they separate from the military never use the benefit, Defense Department data show. Last year, about 7% of service members who separated from the armed forces before 1997 had used up all their benefits by the 10-year limit, Department of Veterans Affairs data show.

Group lobbies for boost in GI payments
By RICK MAZE - Army Times
Posted : Monday Jan 7, 2008

A major military association that will push for improvements in GI Bill benefits in 2008 says its top priority in that area will be the need to finally raise payment rates to cover the average cost of attending a four-year public college. The Military Officers Association of America also wants National Guard and reserve members to receive one month of active-duty education benefits for every month they are mobilized.

Reward for Service
By JIM WEBB and CHUCK HAGEL - Washington Post
Posted : Sunday, November 11, 2007

Nearly a century after the end of the war that was supposed to end all wars, tens of thousands of Americans are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The sacrifices of these brave men and women imbue Veterans Day with special meaning. It requires more than pausing between shopping and football to say thank you.

For example: Lasting fixes are needed for the treatment, rehabilitation and compensation of the returning wounded. The crisis in care and disability has been well-publicized, and it's time Congress act on the recommendations of a bipartisan...

A Post-Iraq G.I. Bill
By JIM WEBB and CHUCK HAGEL - New York Times
Posted : Friday, November 9, 2007

Members of Congress and other political leaders often say that the men and women who have served in our military since 9/11 are the “new greatest generation.” Well, here’s a thought from two infantry combat veterans of the Vietnam era’s “wounded generation”: if you truly believe that our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are like those who fought in World War II, let us provide them with the same G.I. Bill that was given to the veterans of that war.

John Harney: Vets back at school
By John Harney - The Projo News
Posted : Wednesday, Sept 19, 2007 11:43:50 EDT

It's the economic equivalent of sending troops into battle with unarmored Humvees: Though one of the U.S. military’s key recruiting tools is the promise of help paying for college, most New England soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan haven’t a clue what education benefits they are entitled to and the federal government offers them little guidance. ...

Vets Welcomed at Colleges

By JUSTIN POPE - The Associated Press
Monday, August 27, 2007; 5:06 PM
  On the giant state university campus in this military town, veterans have long been marbled into the student body. For many, anonymity is part of the appeal.

But as service members return from Iraq and Afghanistan, some at San Diego State are raising their heads and making themselves more visible. They've started a veterans' organization that is one of the...

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'Operation Education' Launched

By Samantha L. Quigley - US Military
Thursday, August 23, 2007
  Between physical and fiscal challenges, severely injured service members and spouses who don’t hold college degrees may find earning one a bit daunting. The University of Idaho is working to change that.

With a slogan of “You’ve served us; now let us serve you – with a college degree,” the school launched Operation Education in June 2006.

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Pulling a Bait and Switch on Veterans

By Sarah Mead - New America
August 16, 2007
 

If you’ve seen an action film this summer, odds are you’ve also seen a slick advertisement touting the benefits of joining the Army or Marines—including help paying for college. You won’t hear the word “Iraq,” and as the Washington Post reported last week, it turns out that college help may not be all it’s cracked up to be....

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Administration Fights Dem Plan to Boost School Aid for Vets

By Brian Ross - The Blotter
August 09, 2007 11:55 AM
 

The Bush administration opposes a Democratic effort to restore full educational benefits for returning veterans, according to an official's comments last week. Senate Democrats, led by Virginia's Jim Webb, want the government to pay every penny of veterans' educational costs, from tuition at a public university to books, housing and a monthly stipend...

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Battling for a Diploma

By Michelle Diament - Washington Post
Sunday, August 5, 2007; Page W18
 

JOEY LARMAN WAS A YEAR OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL and flipping burgers at McDonald's in King George County, Va., in 1997 when he decided that joining the Army was his best shot at getting an education and making something of himself.

After he left the infantry -- four years, a wife and two children later -- he was even more determined to go to college and was counting on his military benefits to pay for it...

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More military muscle

By Dana Wilkie - Sign On San Diego
July 16, 2007
 

The San Diego area already has some heft in Congress when it comes to military matters, what with one lawmaker – Democrat Bob Filner – leading the House Veterans Affairs Committee and another – Republican Duncan Hunter – the second-in-command on House Armed Services. The region can flex a little more muscle now that Rep. Susan Davis, a San Diego Democrat, is the newly installed chairwoman of...

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