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Bill offers better GI Bill for Guard, reserve

A proposal for a simplified and more generous GI Bill for National Guard and reserve members was unveiled Wednesday by a bipartisan group of 10 senators.

The Reserve Educational Assistance Program Enhancement Act would allow reservists who serve multiple deployments to accumulate credit toward larger education benefits.

Frank Yoakum, legislative director of the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States, which supports the change, said the bill would improve current law in three ways.

“Reports vary, but most agree that over 150,000 reservists have served multiple tours in combat zones since America was attacked 6½ years ago,” Yoakum said. “Although these reservists may earn the same benefits on their first deployment, there is no accrual of benefits for successive deployments. This legislation fixes that inequity.”

The bill would replace the current three-tiered formula for education benefits for mobilized reservists with a single formula.

Someone mobilized for a cumulative three years of service would receive the same benefits as a full-time active-duty person.

“With ever-increasing tuition costs, this will have a significant effect on our student Guard members,” Yoakum said. “It will help make their education more affordable, resulting in greater earning capacity and better future quality of life.”

The new formula also provides benefits at 40 percent of the active-duty rate for a cumulative three months of duty. The percentage rises incrementally for each additional three months of cumulative service, to 60 percent after one year, 80 percent after two years and 100 percent for three or more years.

Current law provides benefits that are 40 percent of active-duty payments for 90 days to one year of consecutive mobilization; 60 percent for more than one but less than two years of mobilization; and 80 percent for more than two years of consecutive service.

Jurisdiction over the reserve plan also would be transferred from the Pentagon to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., is the chief sponsor of the bill. She also sponsored legislation last year that provided GI Bill credit for consecutive days of service.

“Too many inequities still remain in the current GI Bill,” Lincoln said, noting that most members of the Arkansas Guard’s 39th Infantry Brigade Combat Team who deployed to Iraq last month are on a second tour but “will not receive one additional penny of educational benefits because benefits are based on the single-longest deployment for each soldier and are not accruable.”

Co-sponsors include Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Bob Casey, D-Pa.; Mike Crapo, R-Idaho; John Kerry, D-Mass.; Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Barbara Mikulski, D-Md.; Ken Salazar, D-Colo.; and Gordon Smith, R-Ore.

“Only in Washington would some people fail to understand that soldiers who serve longer should receive more benefits,” Kerry said. “It is an insult to those who have worn our country’s uniform to tell them that only a fraction of the days they put their lives on the line are counted toward their benefits.”