ASK ANY MILITARY FAMILY THEIR NO. 1 FRUSTRATION, and you’ll hear the word “transition,” says Kelly Cotton, parent of an 8-year-old special-needs child and an MOAA lobbyist specializing in family issues.
Children of servicemembers face an array of academic and medical chal- lenges their civilian-family counterparts do not. High school kids have to worry about whether state-to-state educational differences will keep them from grad- uating on time. Parents of special-needs children often have a limited window before relocation to line up medical care and education plans. And college costs are always an issue, especially if a teenager planned for college with in-state tuition in mind but his or her parents have to move cross-country. With persistent effort from MOAA, its nationwide network of chapters, and other groups, that’s changing. Recent improvements that help military children include a new law allowing veterans to transfer their Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits to dependents, an interstate compact to make the educational transition easier for kids, and a new DoD Office of Community Support for Military Families with Special Needs. Parents say all are steps in the right direction, but they are concerned
DoD won’t act on the changes quickly enough. DoD, meanwhile, is “com- mitted to responding in a timely fashion.” Its new office for special-needs families is working diligently to create programs and tools, says Deputy Di- rector Rebecca Posante. Cotton hopes the coming year will bring a more standardized approach to meeting children’s needs. “There’s a lot of knowledge out there already,” she says. “I’d like to see them pull out the best practices and streamline them into a baseline policy.” Here’s a summary of the changes MOAA supported and what military families can expect to see in 2011 as policies are implemented:
Shoring up an educational future: transferring GI bill benefits
For the first time in the nation’s history, servicemembers are able to transfer unused GI bill benefits to their spous- es and children. You can enroll in the Post-9/11 GI Bill if you’ve been on active duty or in the Selected Reserve on or after Aug. 1, 2009. The entitlement can be trans- ferred to your spouse, one or more of your children, or some combination. However, you must have served a minimum of six years, and you must commit to serving another four years
52 MILITARY OFFICER APRIL 2011
after opting in. (You also qualify if you became retire- ment-eligible between August 2009 and August 2013 or have 10 years of service and are precluded from serving another four years.) MOAA began its support for GI bill transferability in
1999, according to Col. Bob Norton, USA-Ret., a deputy director in MOAA’s Government Relations Department and the lobbyist who focused his time and attention on upgrading the GI bill.
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