The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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Editorials

July 21, 2007

Our View -- Guard, Reserve deserve GI Bill benefits

As soldiers from the Minnesota National Guard finally come home from their near two-year deployment in Iraq, there will be a lot of recognition on just how much they have done for their country. Now it’s time for their country to do something for them.

Congress has been debating extending educational benefits through the GI Bill to members of the Guard and Army Reserve. Many of these “citizen soldiers” do not have the same benefits provided full-time military personnel. That made sense when the role of the Guard and Reserve was mostly restricted to helping with natural disasters and other domestic calamities. Their duties were restricted to several weekends of training and two full weeks a year.

But since 9/11, these citizen soldiers have been on duty much like regular full-time military. They’ve taken on full-time combat roles in overseas locations. Some 600,000 of them have been called to full-time duty since 9/11; 425,000 of them served in Iraq, Afghanistan or other nearby danger zones. Some 133,000 of them have had more than one tour of duty.

But unlike regular full-time military, they lose their eligibility after they discontinue their service. Full-time military personnel get GI benefits for up to 10 years after they leave the service.

The U.S.House of Representatives has passed a bill that would equalize the benefits to some degree. The Senate will be pursuing similar legislation in the next few months.

The Department of Defense opposes expanding benefits, arguing that making Guard and Reserve members eligible only if they stay in the service was the incentive for them to stay in the service. That’s a point well-taken, but it also doesn’t recognize the significant changes to the role of the Guard and Reserve.

U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., sees the inequity in a personal way. As a Vietnam Vet, he spent 13 months in the full-time military in Vietnam. An aide in his office just got back from a 13-month stint in Iraq, a bullet wound and Purple Heart in tow. The GI Bill paid for the last two years of college for Snyder, and three years of medical school. His aide will get nothing.

Extending GI Bill benefits to Guard and Reserve members will cost $205 million over five years, a price tag that has drawn some resistance in Congress. Yet this investment is well worth the cost.

Many Guard and Reserve members already have skills and the discipline to succeed with higher education and training. Studies show every dollar the government spends on higher education comes back nearly seven times. College graduates tend to earn much more than high school graduates once in the work force.

Extending GI Bill benefits to the Guard and Reserve not only make financial sense, it shows their country is willing to do something for them for the sacrifices made in protecting us.

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