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[chronicle_moderator]

In the last two decades the GI Bill's education benefit for reservists has dropped to 29 percent of active-duty pay, from about half. With the military's increased dependence on reservists to fight the war in Iraq, lawmakers are proposing to give reservists more money for education and allow them to use that benefit, like regular soldiers, after they leave the service. Defense Department officials say that step would remove incentives for reservists to remain in the service and drain funds that could be used for bonuses to soldiers. Are lawmakers trying to fix a system that isn't broken?
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[griz882]

When one thinks of recent issues with higher ed loan practices, the current war, and the constant use of part-time soldiers during local and regional emergencies this topic becomes critical.

My credentials?  I have a Ph.D. in history, recently took on a FT teaching position, have published, and also serve as an enlisted soldier in the Army National Guard (NG).  Since 9/11 I have served at Ground Zero in NYC, Afghanistan, Iraq (twice), on duty at both national political conventions, on the southwest border, and in a few local emergencies.  My days of paying tuition are over(but not my days of paying loans!).  I am an old soldier and long ago recognized that I consider my service my duty - not my job, nor part of my education finance plan.

The same, however, is not true of many younger reserve and NG soldiers.  True, many states cover tuition and some fees for their NG soldiers and airmen at state schools but that does not cover room, board, books, and basic living costs.  Of course, each service member gets teir drill pay (as little a $100 for a weekend) but that covers what I like to call "walking around money."  Put simply - give these young men and women what they deserve for their service, for doing their duty. 

As a more senior soldier and academic I understand how the Department of Defense buys things like weapon systems and quite frankly the system is flawed.  I consider it folly that the USAF is looking to spend millions upon millions of dollars on a fighter jet we don't need (the F-22 Raptor) but cries poverty when it comes to helping their back-up force get an education (something, by the way, that greatly benefits the nation and the armed services).  The F-22 is just one example of how the defense department buys weapons based not on need but on interservice rivalaries and congressional pork.

It is time for Defense to realign their spending habits with current world, national, regional, and loacal reality.  Like it or not, citizen soldiers are critical to our communities and are called upon on a regular basis to do jobs that go far beyond the scope of their training.  We do not need to dig deeper into our pockets to help pay for education programs for citizen solders - we need to ensure that the services are funded by logical need, not foolish spending.             

[historywoman]

Amen, Griz.  Amen.

HW

[mickfed]

Griz raises a number of points.

At the end of the Vietnam War the Joint Chiefs of Staff realigned the military, removing almost all of the combat service support capabilities to the Reserve (Army, Navy and Air Force), and adjusting the National Guard into a strategic expeditionary reserve to reinforce the active component – there was no consideration given to the Guard’s state mission of emergency response (The Marine Corps escaped as their organizational structured is stipulated in law and required Congressional action to modify).

This was done to insure the active military component would never be capable of a long war deployment without calling upon the Reserve and as a way to reduce the size of the active component.  The Joint Chiefs’ logic was the American people would not tolerate the deployment of Reserve and Guard on “political adventures” and this was a way for the military to insure they would never again become the whipping boy for an unpopular, ill-advised war.  It would take the support of the American people – or so they thought.  This was called the Abrams Doctrine after the Army General who promoted it (last theater commander in Vietnam) or the “Total Force” Doctrine.

Fast forward to Rumsfeldt and he decides that we can further reduce the size of active duty force by investing in high-tech weapons and net-centric warfare.  His vision is to use net-centric capabilities to get inside the enemy’s decision cycle and to disrupt their ability to command and control.  We’ll then use high-tech weapons to kill what opposition is left.  What he never considered was what you do with a place once you eliminate its political leadership and international law which, simply put says “you break it, you fix it.”  Those “fix it” forces only exist inside the Reserve.

So now you have a Reserve/Guard which is really organized to be the force troops in expeditionary war, we just don’t pay them on a full-time basis, lay them off when we don’t need them, call them back when we do, and like corporate America provide sub-standard pay and benefits to this necessary part-time force.  In higher education we call these people adjuncts.

Like higher education, the military now rely on adjuncts to perform a majority of the mission.  Like higher education, the military isn’t going to pay their adjuncts any more than what is absolutely necessary.

[booknerd]

This topic bears special interest to me.  I paid my way through the first three years of undergrad using my GI Bill.  After seven years on Active Duty (Army) and a trip to Somalia and Bosnia, Uncle Sam couldn't even cover an entire four years.  I never considered my service my duty.  I come from a family of career soldiers and marines, and they all made it clear that unless there was a war on, it was a decision like any other...one with potentially dire consequences.  It was simple.  I was poor, wanted a chance to go to college and the Army offered me that chance.  Would I have liked more?  Sure, but that was the deal I made, so that's my lot.

Now, if they are thinking of cutting it any more...during the longest sustained armed conflict in thirty years...that's nonsense.   Griz hit the nail on the head.

The problem with a net-centric strategy...or any strategy that doesn't include individual soldiers...is that at the end of the day the only true way to have control of any area is to have boots on the ground.  There's an old military admonition that warns against waging high-tech war.  Human beings must be conditioned for combat.  We can't expect our troops to just pick up and kill (or die) when needed.  Soldiers need to train as much as possible and that can't be done one weekend a month.  I spent my last year in the National Guard and I was terrified that I'd have to take my platoon into action.  I barely had funds to train my active duty troops. 

I would also like to point out something people seem to forget.  Remember the mid-70s, before Deer Hunter, before people talked about Viet Nam Vets as a group, before people tried to understand them.  I was a kid then, but I vividly remember all the burned out young men haunted by something I couldn't fathom.  Everyone had an uncle or father who just wasn't there anymore.  Well, get ready for round two.  I've had to live with PTSD for a long time now, and as I see more and more young folks coming to campus after their time in combat, I'm seeing it in them as well.  If we did nothing else with this war, we managed to damage another generation of Americans in the name of someone else's freedom.