VA Loan Updates

A successful end to a years-long fight to expand the education benefits of military National Guard and reserve members who serve in wars will give the veterans up to 10 years after returning to civilian life to use the benefits

The House and Senate approved last week a compromise de-fense authorization bill that includes the extended timeline. Authorization bills do not require the president’s signature, but a funding bill that backs up the legislation will have to pass later.

Under current law, the military helps pay for the college educations of reservists and Guard members while they are active members, but not after they leave.

“This is really the G.I. Bill for our generation,” said U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, D-Dimock Township, whose actions helped get the measure passed.

Lobbying groups representing reserve and National Guard members said they fought for years - one spokesman said seven years - for the expanded education benefit, calling it one of their top priorities, if not the top priority, for securing benefits for veterans.

“It’s huge, absolutely huge,” said retired Capt. Ike Puzon, director of legislation for the Naval Reserve Association and co-chairman of a coalition of reserve and military groups that worked on the issue.

Capt. Puzon credited Rep. Vic Snyder and Sen. Blanche Lincoln, both D-Arkansas, with originally introducing a bill to extend the time reserve and Guard members could use the benefits and said the coalition worked closely with Snyder.

But the wording that passed as part of the authorization bill more closely resembled a bill introduced by Carney and U.S. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Indiana, in March. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, introduced a similar version in the Senate.

Before the authorization bill passed the House in May, Carney succeeded in attaching an amendment that expressed Congress’ sense that the deadline for using the benefits should be 10 years after someone is no longer a reservist or Guard member. When it came time to fashion a compromise with the Senate version of the bill, Carney was a member of the conference committee that worked on the compromise.

He said he fought for inclusion of the 10-year provision.

The change is significant because of the changing nature of the nation’s military.

Under the nation’s G.I. Bill, full-time members of the military get the education benefit even after they leave the service. Part-timers, like reservists and National Guard members, get the benefit only while they remain members.

But reservists and National Guard members now play a larger role in day-to-day military operations such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. That means their tours in the reserves or Guard often end before they can use their education benefits.

Col. Bob Norton, deputy director of the Military Officers Association of America, said putting the reservists and Guard on equal footing with regular military was his group’s top goal.

“In Pennsylvania right now, you have 2,797 members of the National Guard and reserves on active duty, primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Norton said. “They deserve the same benefits as their active duty counterparts.”

Nationwide, about 460,000 members of the guard and reserves have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11, Col. Norton said.

“This is a cost of war from our point of view,” he said of the benefit, which he estimated will cost $50 million the first year, $165 million overall during the next five years, and $230 million total during the next 10 years.

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