Features » April 20, 2007

GI Bill Fails Vets (cont’d)

Iraq war veterans Drew Cameron (L) and Matt Howard (R) on the University of Vermont campus in Burlington.

“UVM and the VA, they are equally culpable,” says Barry (not his real name). The 28-year-old Vermonter went with his National Guard unit to Iraq in 2004 when he was in his sophomore year at UVM. When he returned two years later after driving Humvees on IED-strewn roads around Baghdad, what he needed most was to put his life back on track.

Despite a good academic record, he says UVM refused him entry for the spring ‘07 semester. “UVM told me they hadn’t sent in the certificate of enrollment paperwork to the VA, so I couldn’t get the benefits in time for the semester. When I asked, they said they don’t know how that happened and there was no making it right.”

Barry “was never registered,” UVM registrar Keith Williams says, so he couldn’t be certified.

Sympathetic to his plight, Barry’s professor and academic advisor had let him attend classes during the weeks of limbo, hoping that the bureaucratic logjam would break. “I felt helpless,” says Barry’s professor. “He wasn’t a wandering soul; he was very directed and on-track to do something positive not only for himself but for society, in a productive health science career—a field where we need more people. But he hit road blocks.”

“I got angry enough so that I called [Sen. Bernie] Sanders (I-Vt.),” Barry says, “and his office had the problem ironed out in a week, but it was too late to enroll for the spring semester.” Sanders office confirmed that it had intervened with the VA.

While only the most sanguine expect the vast VA bureaucracy to bend to individual needs, LaGuardia and Southern Connecticut State show that schools can be responsive and flexible. “We clear vets on the GI bill for classes with a notice saying that money will be coming,” says Joe Bello, CUNY’s veterans office coordination. “It would be a shame if they had to wait a whole semester just because [the VA regional office in] Buffalo failed them.”

That is what Barry is doing. “I lost two years in the service and now I am losing another half year,” he says, adding that he hopes to enroll in the fall.

For now, he is unemployed and his mother is worried. “His life was derailed, he was shot at, his friend was killed, and when he got back, he couldn’t continue school. He doesn’t need more stress, he needs the structure of college. I can’t believe that UVM wouldn’t let him go to school. Why don’t they give families a break?”

Education: the biggest draw

Vets are troubled not only by when they get their benefits but also by the amount. “They told me I would get all this money for college under the Montgomery bill,” says Howard, “but somehow I was so naive that I didn’t know it wasn’t enough to cover school. They were very convincing.”

With 62 percent of surveyed youth telling a Department of Defense (DoD)-sponsored poll that the war on terrorism made them less likely to enlist, military recruiters are hard-pressed to fill quotas. “Educational benefits are a major inducement for many individuals,” according to the DoD, “and typically are the reason for enlisting cited by the largest percentage of new recruits.”

While a careful read of recruitment material provides an accurate picture of what vets can expect, a cursory glance at the Army Web site dangles a level of benefits few will reach. “Depending on how long you enlist with the Army and the job you choose, you can get up to $72,900 to help pay for college,” the Web site promises. “All you have to do is give $100 a month during your first year of service.”

Most vets, however, end up with $38,700 for 36 academic months. The small percent who fail to sign up for the $1,200 “kicker” get no educational benefits at all. “At in-processing before basic training,” explains Rob Timmons of the Iraq Afghanistan Veterans Association, “they announce you can choose to have $100 taken out of your paycheck every month for the next year. For some, it’s no big deal. But a lot of the disenfranchised who have never even seen $1,200 before in their lives don’t sign up.” By missing that one-time opportunity, soldiers forever lose their eligibility to get educational benefits under Montgomery.

“I had one gentleman who came to my office thinking he had benefits, but hadn’t bought in,” Bello says. “These kids joined at 17, 18 or 19, and they didn’t know or have the foresight.” A bill introduced by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) proposes eliminating the $1,200 kicker and fully funding college.

“At least half of LaGuardia’s 113 vets didn’t even know they qualified for benefits” when they showed up at his office, says Bello. “I blame the DoD and by extension the VA.

Frustrated by the VA bureaucracy, many vets turn to college administrators who have to tack veterans’ concerns and navigating the VA on to myriad other duties.

That seems to be the case at UVM. Williams acknowledged that the VA’s time lags combined with the administration’s lack of attention to vets’ special circumstances creates “a perfect formula for frustration. But we are going to change that,” he says, pledging to file earlier using quicker on-line options and give vets more personal attention.

Meanwhile, thousands more war-weary vets returning home are in danger of slipping through MGIB’s cracks.

“It’s an extremely stressful situation for a newly returned vet,” says Howard. “The check is late, the university is breathing down his throat. This is the first dealing with VA that most vets have, and when they come up against shit like this, it discourages them from claiming other benefits, including medical disability, treatments, etc.”

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• Reader Comments

  I have been receiving my prescriptions from the VA since before 9/11.

  Since then the cost has more than doubled (that’s OK — still a good deal), but the work load placed on the doctors and staff has grown immensely. The people at the VA do what they can with what they are allotted.

  Reneging on these contracts fits right in with the Walter Reed mess. This is a national shame.

  For the individuals being gypped I suggest working through an existing veterans’ organization such as the VFW, American Legion or Viet Now. To organize a new Iraq/Afghanistan group will take too long for their educations to benefit.

  This is one more disgusting example of the lack of foresight by the administration and particularly the Department of Defense.
  • Too few troops for the task,
  • Too little manufacturing capability for equipment,
  • Too poor a presentation for the invasion and
  • Too little follow up overall.

  Instead of the War on Terror we could rename it…
  • “WWToo” — Too Little, Too Late (Too Bad).

  Posted by whattheheck on Apr 21, 2007 at 3:21 PM

  “It’s an extremely stressful situation for a newly returned vet,” says Howard. “The check is late, the university is breathing down his throat. This is the first dealing with VA that most vets have, and when they come up against shit like this, it discourages them from claiming other benefits, including medical disability, treatments, etc.”

  Maybe this is by design.

  You young brothers and little sisters who are thinking about signing up, y’all better be doing it because you’re true believers in “the cause”, because if you’re trusting that you’ll be taken care of afterward, signing up because you imagine that it’s in the best opportunity for you and your family, well, you ought to think about that.

  I’ve heard tales like this going back to my childhood, back to the Viet Nam days. Vets apparently aren’t much rewarded or, if they need it, also aren’t well taken care of.

  Don’t trust! Don’t drop your guard! Ask around, talk to vets who have tried to access the benefits or compensations you yourself are most interested in. What was their experience? What were the hassles? Get several points of view.

  When the recruiter tries the sell-job, stay skeptical. The recruiter gets paid, and receives bonuses, based on the number of newbies he or she can convince to sign the dotted line. They’re not paid to disseminate detailed information, as though to help you make the best decision, just to get you to commit.

  Does that mean they’ll BS you to get you to sign? The point is, you don’t know.

  Don’t! Trust!!

  Posted by Kuya on Apr 23, 2007 at 8:19 AM

  Kuya,

  “When the recruiter tries the sell-job, stay skeptical. The recruiter gets paid, and receives bonuses, based on the number of newbies he or she can convince to sign the dotted line.”

  Good advice.
  In fact it is good for almost any situation.

  Always ask yourself, “Whose interest is this person going to look out for?”  Stock brokers, car salesmen, insurance agents, CNBC, that pharmaceuticals ad — all try to make you feel confident they have your future at the forefront of their concerns.

  Back in the 1950s, when I went into the army, recruiters said, “If you go RA (Regular Army for four years enlistment instead of less time) you can choose either your advanced training or your foreign duty station.”
  I met a lot of guys who got neither. They put you wherever they need a body. I was trained for infantry, but was a cook (hated it), a clerk (couldn’t type), a truck driver (OK, I could drive.) The dumbest guy in my basic platoon (who they made carry a rock in his left hand to remember which foot to start on) became an ambulance driver!

  The best advice —which came from many friends who had been in before me — “Don’t let them get to know your name. Stay in the middle of the group. Never volunteer!”

  I do know a lot of people who got a good deal from the old G.I. Bill. In fact thhe whole country benefitted from it. My guess is some of the kids getting screwed now have heard tthe good stories from parents or grandparents. But the whole country is so different now that the corporations have become the fourth branch of government.

  Posted by whattheheck on Apr 23, 2007 at 12:05 PM

  Yup, whattheheck, “...the whole country is so different now…”; you said a mouthful alright!

  I’m repeatedly dismayed.

  Seems to me that getting involved with the military these days ought to be likened to getting involved with hard drugs.

  You sure better know all the facts before you drop, because you’ll be done with IT a hell of a lot quicker than it’ll be done with YOU!

  Posted by Kuya on Apr 24, 2007 at 7:35 AM

  Hi,y’all!

  So sad, especially since the republicans have mustered under the standard of"support our troops!”.

  I wonder how much solace one gains from a yellow ribbon after one has lost a limb, or loved one, in a ridiculous war fought by an ill-equipped army, commanded by a Secretary of Defense who says “you go to war with army you got”. Incidentally, Rummy, which party was it that said “WAR!, WAR!,WAR!,NOW!, NOW!, NOW!
  Then again, GI’s were not big campaign contributors, so the republicans dismissed them as inconsequential.

  Also, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to some of the Iraq War veterans. If one thinks that Vietnam veterans were clannish and felt angrily betrayed, then, sadly, one will get to see even more so of the same.

  All of this because of a group who place business interests above the public interest.

  Spare us the WMD argument.(OH, yes,yes, I’ve heard the right-wing red herring of us finding mortar rounds containing nerve gas.It’s not the same thing compared to the nuclear weapons the BU**SH** administration used to scare us. It’s rather like comparing an air-rifle to a cannon.) There weren’t any. Not since Saddam Hussein used the ones we sold him. That’s not to belittle the thre hundred tons of high explosives the Iraqis stole from weapons depots atn the outset of the war. The theft of which this administration has pooh-poohed despite the very likely supposition that those explosives are being used to make IED’s, and probably will for the next century, or until we leave.

  
  Ta-Ta!

  Posted by Aunty Rightwing on Apr 26, 2007 at 3:37 AM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

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