“When I returned from a twelve-month deployment on my second tour, I was given just two weeks to complete my finals. I hadn’t seen the course work in nearly twelve months.”

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AARON GLANTZ: You’re listening to “The War Comes Home.” Warcomeshome.org, project of KPFA Radio. I’m Aaron Glantz.

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GLANTZ Marine Corps reservist Todd Bowers was half-way through his degree in Middle Eastern Studies at George Washington University when the Pentagon pulled him out of school and sent him on two combat tours to Iraq.
When he returned, he found his student loans had been sent to collection.

BOWERS “My loans went over to collections and I returned home to a real financial mess. I’ve since then gotten it straightened out, but only after hundreds of phone calls and hours of trying to get everyone to understand what the situation was. … I had tremendous amounts of letters and everything else that said you owe this money. Once I came back and informed everyone of that, they were very understanding and they said, ‘we’re sorry, we’ll see what we can do,’ but the damage had already been done with regards to my credit history.”

GLANTZ That wasn’t Bowers’ only problem.

BOWERS “When I returned from a twelve-month deployment on my second tour, I was given just two weeks to complete my finals. I hadn’t seen the course work in nearly twelve months. I had tapped out my student loans at that point and had to leave. I still have not finished. I had maxed out just about everything I could borrow.”

GLANTZ So, with a year left before graduation, Bowers dropped out of school. He now works as government affairs director for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) — the first and largest member-organization for veterans of the United States’ recent wars.

He notes today’s GI bill doesn’t contain the same benefits World War II vets got.

When President Franklin Roosevelt signed the GI Bill into law in the waning days of World War II, he saw it as part of his New Deal Program. The law, officially known as the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, promised veterans the government would pay the entire cost of full tuition and books at any public or private college or job-training program. It also provided unemployment insurance and loans to purchase homes and start businesses.

By contrast, the currently used the Montgomery GI Bill of 1984 asks active duty members to accept a pay reduction of $100 per month through 12 months of military service. When they return to school, active duty soldiers receive a maximum of $1,075 a month for up to 36 months. Reservists like Todd Bowers receive even less.

BOWERS “I can receive about $800 a month, which is a good chunk of change I’ll be the first to admit that, but when you’re attending a University that’s about $4,500 a class, $800 a month barely puts a dent in it. … You know, we don’t spend Spring break in Cancun, we spend it in Fallujah. It makes it extremely difficult to take a year off of class, go to a combat zone and then come back and have everything just go back to normal, the way it was. Nobody goes to war and comes back the same person and that goes for students also.”

In Judy, IAVA put put forward a new bill in Washington, which is sponsored by Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Congresswoman Susan Davis of Southern California. The Veterans Education Tuition Support (VETS) Act wouldn’t increase the amount of money veterans get for college, but it would close loopholes in the GI bill that make finishing a degree more difficult.
The VETS Act would require colleges to refund tuition for service members sent overseas, cap student loan interest payments at 6 percent while the student is deployed, and extend the period of time during which a student-soldier may re-enroll after returning from abroad.

Currently there are about 90,000 U.S. military reservists who are enrolled in college and about 25,000 of them have been deployed at least once to either Iraq or Afghanistan.

You’ve been listening to the “War Comes Home,” warcomeshome.org: a project of KPFA Radio.