Collins seeks to add benefits, update GI Bill

WASHINGTON – Members of the United States Reserves and the National Guard would receive expanded education benefits under legislation Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, proposed last week

Collins’ bill to modernize the Montgomery GI Bill, introduced with Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., would allow individuals to receive benefits after separating from service and to earn benefits based on time served.

“We have been asking a great deal of [Guard and Reserves] ever since the attacks on our country in September of 2001,” Collins said in a telephone interview. “Our goal is to try to improve the educational benefits … in recognition of their service and sacrifice.”

Active-duty service members now have up to 10 years after separation from service to use their benefits. Under the proposed legislation, reservists and Guard members would have the same benefits after separation.

Sgt. Maj. Robert Haley, educational services manager for the Maine Army National Guard, said there are “huge disparities” between the benefits among active-duty forces and mobilized Guard and Reserve forces.

“The primary disparity is one of money,” Haley said. “The GI Bill provides an excess of $36,000 worth of [active-duty] benefits, while the bill provides select reserves slightly more then $11,000 worth [of benefits].”

Under the proposed legislation, activated Guard and Reserve members who serve a year in Iraq or other combat zones would be awarded the same educational benefits as active-duty soldiers serving for the same amount of time, Collins said.

“Whatever the cap on funding given, it would be the same on a proportional basis among the National Guards and those on active duty,” Collins said.

The proposed bill also would integrate all GI Bill programs under one title, making equity upgrades applicable to active duty and Reserve and Guard members.

“Essentially everybody falls under the same rules,” Haley said of the bill. “The more time you serve, the more educational benefits you will receive.”

In Maine, about 70 percent of the state’s Army National Guard force, or nearly 1,400 soldiers, have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001, according to a recent press release from Collins’ office.

Though the legislation would extend benefits for members of the Guard and Reserves, some individuals may choose to serve for a shorter time because the increased benefits make retirement more attractive, Haley said.

The bill “may increase enrollment, but it may also increase the number of people who leave the Guard sooner than they actually would,” he said.

Veterans organizations, such as the American Legion, support the proposed legislation as a response to the increasingly prominent role of the National Guard and Reserve forces since Sept. 11, said Steve Robertson, legislative director of the legion.

“There has been a dramatic change in the role of the Guard and Reserve,” Robertson said. “It appears as if kids are coming back now and not getting the same types of benefits that active-duty service members are getting.”

The GI Bill needs to be updated, he added.