Fighting for an education

The nation owes our veterans a new and improved GI Bill

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

By Ray Kimball

When I came home from Iraq in 2003, I didn't handle the transition well. Shifting from being a combat commander making life-or-death decisions to being an ordinary husband and father was like driving a sports car at 60 miles an hour and suddenly downshifting from fifth gear to first. Despite coming home to a loving family and a welcoming community, I felt adrift and unable to connect.

Ray Kimball is a Pennsylvania native and a founding member of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (http://www.iava.org/).

Fortunately, I had an outlet. I had been selected to attend an Army-funded graduate school program at one of the nation's top universities. As I immersed myself in my studies, I found that I was better able to make sense of my combat experiences. Later, as a history professor teaching future officers, I was able to use those same experiences to help rising leaders prepare themselves for the shock of transition from peace to war and back.

Unfortunately, far too few veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are afforded the opportunity I had. Despite the promises of military recruiters that the military will pay for a college education, current "GI Bill" benefits cover only about 60 percent to 70 percent of the cost of a four-year degree at a public university -- and less than half the cost of a private college education. For national guardsmen and reservists, even those who have served multiple combat tours, the benefit is even lower -- often only a few hundred dollars a month.

With college costs in the tens of thousands of dollars, these benefits are barely a drop in the bucket. Moreover, veterans have to pay the initial costs of college out of pocket, then wait as the 118,000 VA education claims currently pending are processed. Meanwhile, the interest on their loans adds up.

It wasn't always this way. The World War II GI Bill, known as the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, covered full tuition, books and administrative fees, and provided a living stipend for veterans to support their families while they were in school. The program wasn't cheap, but it paid off as a national investment.

A 1988 congressional study found that every dollar spent on educational benefits under the original GI Bill added seven dollars to the national economy in terms of productivity, consumer spending and tax revenue. We cannot even begin to imagine what such a program could do for the hundreds of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

The benefits of a new GI Bill don't end there. As the Army and Marine Corps seek to grow their troop levels over the next several years, they face significant challenges in recruiting and retaining the kind of mentally agile troops who can readily adapt to the complexity of modern warfare.

A 2000 RAND study concluded that generous improvements to the GI Bill would "improve recruiting substantially," far in excess of what might be lost through decreased retention of service members seeking to take advantage of the benefit. This would also have the positive impact of bringing new blood into a force that is quickly being ground down under the weight of repeated deployments.

My organization, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, is proud to be a supporter of a pair of bills currently pending in the House and Senate that would significantly increase GI Bill benefits. Although not proposing to match the levels of the World War II GI Bill, the pending legislation would cover the full costs of a four-year degree at a public school, as well as provide a living stipend. The bills also would give Reserve and National Guard service members full credit for all of their combat tours.

The bills have the support of more than 300 Democrats and Republicans -- and we could pass them soon if they were included in the legislation to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The GI Bill is a cost of war, and it's a cost the politicians in Washington need to pay. Tell your representative to get on the side of those service members who are fighting for an education.

First published on April 30, 2008 at 12:00 am