When they came home from Iraq, 2,600 members of the Minnesota National Guard had been deployed longer than any other ground combat unit. The tour lasted 22 months and had been extended as part of President Bush's surge.
1st Lt. Jon Anderson said he never expected to come home to this: A government refusing to pay education benefits he says he should have earned under the GI bill.
"It's pretty much a slap in the face," Anderson said. "I think it was a scheme to save money, personally. I think it was a leadership failure by the senior Washington leadership... once again failing the soldiers." [full story]
To be fair, their deployment, though longer than any other ground combat unit, did not last enough to qualify these troops for benefits under the G.I. Bill. You see, their orders were only for 729 days.
To qualify for benefits under the G.I. Bill, they would have needed to be deployed for a full 730 days. Quite an astounding coincidence; that their deployment fell a mere one day short of making them eligible for those benefits. Shucks for them.
Senators Klobuchar and Coleman released a joint statement saying the Army secretary, Pete Geren, is looking into this personally, and they say Geren asked a review board to expedite its review so the matter could be solved by next semester.
Well, that's fortunate. Hey, maybe those troops will be lucky enough to go back to Iraq, therefore making their educational pursuits unnecessary...? That certainly would be very supportive of our troops, don't you think?
