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Group: New GI Bill overlooks Guardsmen

Many are hailing the long-awaited launch of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, calling it a much-deserved benefit for a military driven hard by eight years of war.

But some deserving veterans weren’t invited to the party, says the National Guard Association of the United States.

According to the group, 30,000 to 33,000 National Guardsmen who served during the post-9/11 era in homeland defense roles don’t qualify for the generous program, which completely covers the full in-state cost of a college education for nearly everyone who has served more than three years on active duty since Sept. 10, 2001.

The group says that’s because the Guardsmen were activated in a Title 32 status — which governs Guardsmen activated for federal duty under the control of a governor, but paid with federal dollars — instead of under Title 10, under which troops, no matter what their affiliation, are on full-time active service under the control of the president. The legislation that enabled the Post-9/11 GI Bill provides the benefit only to those who were or are in a Title 10 status.

“This new program is worth celebrating,” said retired Brig. Gen. Stephen Koper, NGAUS president. “It provides comprehensive education benefits to the men and women who have sacrificed so much to keep our nation safe the last eight years.”

But “the legislation as enacted has a blind spot,” Koper said. “Thousands of National Guardsmen who helped secure the nation’s skies, borders, airports, military installations and other sensitive facilities are ineligible. They left jobs and families behind, many performed dangerous work, but they will not receive this great gesture of America’s gratitude simply because they were in Title 32 federal status instead of Title 10 federal status.”

The ineligibility of such Guardsmen, NGAUS spokesman John Goheen said, “really goes against the grain of the spirit of this legislation.”

“They are veterans of the war on terror,” Goheen said. “Yet they can’t reap the benefits that their brothers and sisters in uniform who served elsewhere — and in some cases, served in the same kind of locations doing the same duty — can take advantage of.”

The group is pushing hard to get the legislation amended. “We have made the original authors of the legislation aware of the discrepancy,” he said.

In addition, Goheen said NGAUS wants members to contact legislators at the grassroots level — an effort he said could be particularly effective during the August congressional recess, which the House has already begun.

“Certainly, the recess gives us an opportunity for our members across the country to take up this issue to their elected officials when they come home,” Goheen said.