washingtonscene Akaka Seeks
GI Bill Fixes Sweeping legislation is introduced.
Sen. Daniel Akaka
(D-Hawaii) I
n late May, Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chair Daniel Akaka (D- Hawaii) introduced sweeping new legislation to improve many aspects of the year-old Post-9/11 GI Bill. Proposed upgrades include:
n coverage of vocational, on-the-job, and apprenticeship training; flight training; and other types of nondegree training, as all previous GI bill incarnations have done, but the Post-9/11 GI Bill had not; n benefits for guardmembers ordered to state active duty (Title 32) for missions au- thorized by the president or the secretary of defense or on full-time duty to organize, administer, train, or recruit for the Guard; n allowing a housing stipend for full-time online learners. The rate would be set at 50 percent of the national average for housing based on the DoD housing rate for an E-5 with dependents; n authority for uniformed members of the U.S. Public Health Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps to transfer GI bill benefits to family members; n payment of up to $1,000 for a book al- lowance for servicemembers and their spouses enrolled while on active duty; n an upgraded subsistence allowance for disabled veterans using Vocational Rehabili- tation and Employment benefits; and n coverage for multiple licensure and certification tests. The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Im-
provements Act (S. 3447) also would make other adjustments to the program that likely will be controversial. In place of current state-to-state pay- ment variations, the bill would pay all
3 4 MI L I T A R Y O F F I C E R AU G U S T 2 0 1 0
“established charges” at any public college or university. Veterans who attend private or foreign schools would be reimbursed at the lesser of the established charges or the national-average cost of all private-college baccalaureate degree programs. The bill also would make DoD and other federal agencies responsible for funding the transfer-of-benefits program for spouses and dependents. DoD would be responsible for administering transfer- of-benefits changes after a servicemem- ber’s separation or retirement. Akaka said winning the changes “will
not be a simple process. Nor will it be easily accomplished [in the current bud- get environment].” MOAA applauds Akaka for taking the initiative to improve the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
When Do We
Ask Too Much? Unending sacrifices will break the force.
S
ervice leaders, Congress, and most of the nation have done a great deal of hand-wringing over
the burdens imposed on troops and their families, as many combat units have been deployed to war zones every other year for almost a decade. For some servicemembers, this has
meant four, five, or more combat deploy- ments in that period, even as well-doc- umented studies show each successive tour increases the odds a warrior will re- turn home a different person and his or her spouse and children will incur great- er psychological-adjustment burdens. If a force planner had been asked 10
years ago what retention would be like if troops deployed to war every other year for a decade, the answer would have been, “disastrous.”
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