Mark Palermo

Read This Before Enlisting

Home
He Was Our S.O.B.
Long Ago Saturday Nights at the Circle 9
The Dark Side of Vaccinations
Wine: Where Ignorance and Pretension Find their Loudest Voice
A 1976 Journey in Search of Self
The Machinery of Mass Dreams
The Outlaw Georgie Bush
Sex Offender Registries Out of Control
Extreme Makeover for Airheads
The Fault Lies not in the Stars, but in Ourselves
Reconsidering George Carlin
If You Think Liberals Are Jerks...
She Couldn't Do Her Chores
Remembering Viktor Frankl
One Day on the Farm-1977
A Fresh Look at Meat
How the Real World Works: A Lesson
30 Bucks for the Human Touch
1929 All Over Again
An Old Man's War, A Young Man's Fight
More Things in Heaven and Earth...
Our Dumbed-down Public Discourse
Bread, But No Roses
Earth's the Right Place for Love
Read This Before Enlisting
Poison Is Good for You: The Fluoridation Scam
Ron Paul:He Makes Too Much Sense
War Is a Racket
Brazil's National Orgasm Day
Calling all Liberals!
Why I Don't Get Flu Shots
What is Community?
Haverhillicus Homocrisicum
If You Wanna Be a Junkie, Why?
Do We Know His Family?
Scam: Youth Sports
A Subsidy for the Human Touch?
How Not to Be Boring
If the Bread and Roses Strike Were NOW
America's Problem with the Body
Columbus Day? or Renaissance Day?
Depleted Uranium Weapons
Mitt Romney: A Clintonian Republican
A Checklist for Conservatives
On Torture and Torturers
Pimp of the Nation
Romney is a Jerk
Hypocrisy and its Champions
The Dumb Society
The Men's Taverns of Yesteryear
On Dittoheads!
Let China Sleep
2004 McDebates
Animal Rights Page
US Wealth Distribution Chart
QUOTATIONS PAGE
Public Grief, Private Lives

 

 

 

“Imagine telling an entire generation they could receive a free college education at any school that would accept them — Texas A&M, Harvard University, the Sorbonne — anywhere. Throw in a monthly stipend for living expenses, plus more money for books. And when you graduate, there's a government-backed home loan waiting, no money down and no credit checks — buy a house cheaper than renting an apartment. Throw in subsidized farm loans, business loans, free job training, free medical care, free job placement, and up to a year’s worth of weekly paychecks until you find work…And so it was: the post-World War II G.I. Bill. It revolutionized higher education, created suburbia, brought us the scientists, engineers, doctors, artists and teachers who built most of what is good in America today.”

 

From the publisher of “Over Here: How the GI Bill transformed the American Dream,” by Edward Humes.

veteran.jpg

Recently, I became aware of a grim reality when I picked up a U.S. Army recruitment brochure. It featured a generous, but carefully worded offer to potential enlistees: the military will give you (based on qualifications) up to $50,000 plus a sign up bonus of up to $20,000.

 

The key words here are “up to.” I can promise you, for example, that I will pay you up to $5000 to paint my house. If you accept the job and I pay you $800 after you finish, I have kept my promise and you have no legal claim against me. In the real world, “up to $5000” usually means below $5000. It can even mean zero, and when it comes to the military’s promise of money for school- it often does. Very few recruits receive the maximum college benefit of $70,000. In fact, most recruits get no benefits at all.

 

To earn the $70,000 the military advertises, you must first qualify for the Army/Navy College Fund. To do this you have to place in the top half of the military entry exams, which means of course that %50 of all applicants are eliminated right off the bat. If you do score in the top 50%, then in order to get to the $70,000, you must be willing to enter a designated job specialty that almost nobody else wants, usually because it is extremely dangerous or because it offers zero transferable job skills.

If you don’t make the cut for the Army/Navy College Fund, there is still the Montgomery GI Bill that you may qualify for. The maximum benefit you get under the Montgomery GI Bill is around $36,000, but the military attaches strings here too.

For example, in order to qualify for the full amount, you are required to pay a $1200 deposit to the military. You have only one chance to apply during basic training. If you leave the military early- as 40% do for a number of reasons, or get anything less than honorable discharge, or decide later not to go to college, the military gets to keep your deposit. Incredibly, the $36,000 they promise you includes your own deposit money, so the actual amount is around $36,000, less your deposit.

 

The benefits- if after all this you finally manage to qualify for them- are paid in 36 monthly installments spread out over 4 years; You can not receive larger payments over a shorter period of time. And you must continue college for four consecutive years without interruption, which some people are unable to do.

 

The Montgomery Bill doesn’t even come close to covering college costs, even at a state school. At UMass Amherst,for instance, students pay $7400 in fees and $6200 for room and board. Figure at least $2500 for books and miscellaneous expenses and you are looking at a yearly bill of over $16,000- of which the Montgomery GI Bill covers about $9000, a bit more if you are married.

 

If you go to a two year college, you will receive only half of the money you are qualified for. Remember too that military benefits are usually given instead of, not in addition to, other forms of financial aid that you might otherwise have qualified for.

 

With so many curves in the road and hoops to jump through, it is no wonder only about 16% of veterans ever get a four-year college diploma. The military’s educational benefits are an embarrassment. Once upon a time in this country, we treated veterans with gratitude. We need a new GI Bill like the one enacted for returning World War II veterans

May 2007

This helpful advice comes from a reader:

Mark,

I just read your article “Are military recruiters telling the Truth” Dated 5/07/07. I would like to pass on an event that I recently ran into. A veteran brought in an enlistment contract that stated he was to receive a $40,000 education bonus because he had selected a career path which qualified him for the bonus. Now that he is in school, he has discovered that the $40,000 “bonus” includes his standard GI Bill benefits. When I read the contract, there was nothing stating that the bonus included his standard GI Bill benefits.

After several attempts to contact someone who was involved in this marketing scheme (all phone calls that I placed rang indefinitely –no message, and emails were never returned), I found someone within the DOD maze who reviews these contracts when the VA receives them from angry vets. These bonuses are the creation of the DOD and the VA has nothing to do with them. She verified that the Vet had probably been “misled”.  

 She then offered advice on how to request his additional money:

“I encourage you to present your case to the Army Board for Correction of Military Records (ABCMR), by submitting DD Form 149 to this Board.  You can apply online through their web site at http://arba.army.pentagon.mil.   Even though you apply online (which is faster, of course), you will be instructed to print out the DD Form 149, sign in ink & date it, and mail to the Board. When you do this, please attach a copy of the front and reverse sides of your DA Form 3286-66 which you fax'd to me.

 When you go into this Board website, in the middle of the screen, you will see 3 BOARDS listed; you click on the first one for the ABCMR.  The home page for the ABCMR will come up; scroll down the screen until you see where to apply online.

Once at the DD Form 149, there will be a box (in box 5 or 6, I don't remember which) for you to type in the problem or the error.  Please state your facts up front!  When you state your facts, you might want to state something like this:  "I entered active duty on 4 Mar 2003 for the ACF incentive at $40,000 (please see the attached copy of my ACF contract, DA Form 3286-66).  Nowhere on my DA Form 3286-66 does it say that the $40,000 included the basic rate of the MGIB, $32,400.  I learned today that the remainder, $7,600 is my ACF.  Please pay me equitable relief of the amount I feel cheated out of, $32,400."  These 3 sentences give the Board the facts.  If you still have space left, then you can type in information to the Board as to what negative impact this has had on you, your budget, your family, . . . “  

If any veteran reading this has further questions about the above mentioned procedure, email me at markpalermo@lycos.com and I can put him or her in touch with a real person who can guide them through the process of getting what is owed to them.

 

 

Watch this before enlisting