A little more outrage for those who claim that Bush and his war bunglers support our troops.

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/spotlight/news-article.aspx?storyid=92684

When 2,600 members of a  Minnesota National Guard outfit returned from 22 months of duty in Iraq they found out they were not eligible for education benefits under the GI bill. Their deployment to Iraq was the longest of any National Guard unit. The reason, the Pentagon cut orders for 729 days of deployment, you need 730 days to qualify. A oversight?...A mistake by Bush's Pentagon? Come on, nobody would make that mistake, it's another example of the Administration screwing the troops it claims to support! 

1st LT. John Anderson of the Guard Unit said, (note the words "once again"  apparently he must feel that is common for leadership to fail soldiers)

   "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."

Bob Hobot, another Platoon Leader believed along with Anderson;

Both Hobot and Anderson believe the Pentagon deliberately wrote orders for 729 days instead of 730.
 
I really grow tired of the Rights contention that Democrats don't support our troops when we hear of failures in the VA Hospitals and garbage like this.

Minnesota National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Kevin Olson said the soldiers are "victims of a significant injustice."

The Army did not respond questions Tuesday afternoon.

Oh well, I guess that we can just put this in the column, "We can send them over, but when they return we can forget about them!" You know, out of sight ,out of mind! Troop support by the Bush Administration!..... Yea!

It does take two years of active duty to fo qualify for the Montgomery GI Bill, however, they do qualify for REAP.

http://education.military.com/money-for-school
/reserve/gi-bill/reserve-education
-assistance-program-reap

URL split.

>>They would not have to have been in school on Dec. 9, 2001 to take advantage of the program, they qualify now(this is in other news reports).  REAP was passed in 2004 and backdated to 9/11.  Which means that if a reservist had been on a contingency opeartion prior to the passage of this bill, they could get school assistance back to Dec. 9, 2001.<<

OK. I'll buy that, but then again I ask how many of the 2600 troops are in that position? The 2 Officers mentioned in the story seem to think that they have been shafted, don't you think that they deserve full benefits because of 1 day? I sure do, I'll bet that they, along with other members of the unit feel screwed or this would have been a non story! REAP is only a partial benefit, there should be no question that for 22 months in Iraq they deserve much better!

>>Even thought the orders were cut for 729 days, what counts is the actual days served.  22 months is not 729 days.<<

I guess your right, they don't deserve any extra consideration even though they served 660 days in combat. That's support for our troops. Fact is, the orders were cut for 729 days, no matter how long they served, if the orders were cut for 730 days they would have qualified even with 660 actual days in Iraq. The determining factor is not how many days you serve, it's the orders that count and that was for 729 days. I take it you watched the video in the link?..that's their beef, the orders.