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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! October 8, 2007 Wishin' For TuitionBy GreyhawkThis story stinks. Let's start with this straight up: You can't give Iraq veterans enough compensation (full disclosure: I've done two tours, am still on the second...) but I hope the Minnesota Guard members - and all others - get as much as they can. I'd love to see Congressmen and Senators stop bickering about whether American soldiers are a) failures who've lost the war, or b) cold blooded killers, and instead fight among themselves over who can propose the largest compensation package. But I think the coverage given thus far to this story is sorely lacking in key details, and the reporters are either in over their heads on military related issues or being intentionally misleading. Most of those key points and unanswered (or unasked) questions are obvious to anyone with military experience. Let's clear one minor point of potential confusion immediately: the unit in question wasn't in Iraq for 22 months - they were here for 15. The remaining time was spent training and equipping stateside. Not sure how much of that was spent away from home, for most Guard units the answer would be "enough". Anyhow, that's not germane to the discussion - just a point of clarification. Fifteen months in Iraq is long enough (in my humble opinion) to qualify for any benefits - unfortunately policy isn't based on my opinion. Now, let's look at this specific story bit closer, because it begs about 500 questions - none of which I have time to research, but a few of which I have time to ask. First, numbers: Anderson's orders, and the orders of 1,161 other Minnesota guard members, were written for 729 days.So, fair or not, they didn't qualify for the benefit. And orders issued that establish that were issued prior to their deployment. But for some reason, Anderson said the soldiers he oversaw in his platoon expected that money to be here when they come home.Why? Did someone fail to inform them of their pay and benefits? Who, exactly, should have done so? (Heh – I actually know the answer to that one…) Or worse, did someone lie to them about their pay and benefits? Now let's simplify the numbers. Instead of saying "730 days" when referencing the minimum, let's use the term "2 years" - because 730 days = 2 years. We can even convert that into months - two years = 24 months. Now that we've got everything converted to like terms, lets perform complex mathematics: 24 months - 22 months = 2 months. That's how far short their actual tour fell of qualifying for the benefits. But is that the issue? Do you have to serve two years, or do you just have to have orders for two years to qualify? Again, according to the story, "Had they been written for 730 days, just one day more, the soldiers would receive those benefits to pay for school." Which leads one to believe the amount of actual service does not matter. I'm not in the Guard - I don't know the answer, but I'll provide a guess shortly. Guard members are covered under the GI Bill - the Montgomery GI Bill for Selected Reserves (MGIB SR) but it's not as robust a benefit as the active duty component receives. But most States (and unless activated under federal orders the Guard is a State unit) offer other additional educational benefits to their Guard troops. But according to this definition Guard members can qualify for the full benefit only if they serve two years active duty... Beside the MGIB SR, activated reserve and Guard servicemembers have two other GI Bill options. The first gives those who serve continuously for 24 or more months on active duty, the option to pay into the GI Bill for active duty.And there's a second issue now apparent - the GI Bill is not a "free" benefit - to active duty or Guard troops. If you want it, you have to buy it, via a $100 a month pay reduction for one year. (While that's still a great bargain, many junior troops can't afford it. You only have one chance - and that comes at the start of your career - to buy in.) So I suspect that this is what happened to the Minnesota Guard troops: because their orders were for a period less than what would qualify them for the GI Bill tuition benefit, they were not given the opportunity to "buy in". They may actually have been given the chance and some may have taken it (the only reason they could actually expect the benefit was waiting for them), but if so none of the news coverage includes that data point - and I can't believe they would neglect to mention that the troops were being denied a benefit they'd actually bought and paid for. But again, Anderson said the soldiers he oversaw in his platoon expected that money to be here when they come home.Why? Again, whichever is the point that would have actually qualified them for the benefit, neither the orders they were issued nor the time they served on active duty meets the requirement. In short, while I think they should get it, and while every American might agree with me, they didn't qualify. And if someone lied or mislead them into believing otherwise, that doesn't change the fact that they don't qualify. And that's an outrage. Now I'll repeat: I hope Lt Anderson and any of his soldiers who want will get the benefits they deserve. And I think they deserve the GI Bill tuition benefits. But I extend that desire to everyone serving with me in Iraq - along with those in Afghanistan. I don't think the Minnesota Guard deserves special treatment. Here's what ought to happen: Give the GI Bill to all active duty troops along with Guard/reserve forces activated for service in Iraq and Afghanistan. By "give" I mean ELIMINATE THE "BUY IN" - stop forcing junior troops to decide between feeding their families and tucking some money away for college. And while we're at it, increase the benefit to equal what the troops returning from WWII received. If it could be done for the largest Army in American history, it certainly could be done for the smallest. Who has that power? Only one group of people can do it. It's not the military. It's not the President. Ladies and Gentlemen, it's the most unpopular institution in the history of the United States: your Congress. (Who are working on another pork-leaden defense spending Bill even as we speak...) Posted by Greyhawk / October 8, 2007 6:31 PM | Permalink 9 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
Although all 2,600 Soldiers from the "Red Bull" 1st Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division served the same amount of time, about half received orders for 729 days or fewer while the rest of their colleagues received orders for 730 days.
Under Chapter 30 of the Montgomery Bill, Soldiers must serve 730 days or more in active duty deployment to qualify to receive $894 per month in education assistance, which they can use for up to 10 years after leaving the service.
Otherwise they can only qualify for $660 per month through the Reserved Education Assistance Program (REAP), which expires when they deactivate.
Gack - further questions arise.
The full GI Bill benefit is @$1100 and they could have been eligible for it had they served 730 and contributed.
Simplify: Give everyone the GI Bill education benefits, as per WWII criteria and to that level.
G-Man,
Very strong. I remember that $100/month payment and how much it sucked. I know I wouldn't have made it if I had kids.
-- Uber Pig
Somebody wrote orders for 729 days. What was wrong with 730?
Mr. G.
I too am of the mindset, that lets just make sure these folks get the benefits they earned...
As Mr. Arrghhh mentioned earlier, a phonecall does not hurt one bit.
"...pork-leaden defense spending Bill". Don't you mean "laden"? Or maybe you really did mean "leaden"! That would be a very appropriate adjective, whether you used it by accident or on purpose.
Cordially,
Neil Ferguson
Yuma, AZ
I've quoted you and linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2007/10/re-wishin-for-tuition.html
I of the opinion that everyone activated during a time of war should receive the same benefits.
But, I'm also of the opinion that every single dollar of pork proposed on any bill by any federal legislator on any war time legislation should be a separate count of criminal profiteering during war.
I am one of those Red Bulls, and the story here is a lot of bull.
First off, no one in my COC ever promised us extra bennies.
Second, the regs say you have to serve 730 days, not just have orders cut for 730. Most of us spent about 180 days in Camp Shelby (which should by itself qualify as a hostile fire zone) and 15-16 months in theater. No matter how you add it up, we didn't serve in uniform for 730 days.
The Army, being part of the military, cut our extension orders longer than was needed to make sure they didn't need to cut more. You can argue that we should get the bennies, but please don't argue that we earned them under the current regs.