Features » April 20, 2007

GI Bill Fails Vets (cont’d)

“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.”