The Wake

On March 20, 2003, a coalition of nations (mostly composed of troops from the United States and United Kingdom) marched over the Kuwait-Iraq border into the hostile territory of Iraq. Two and a half years and a lot of unanswered questions later, U.S. veterans have a big one for The Man: Where’s my money?

The GI Bill of Rights, officially named the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944, was established to help veterans coming back from World War II get their lives back together. Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the bill, which included provisions providing, among other things, a college education for U.S. veterans. The GI Bill has gone through various changes in the past 60 years, but it has remained true to the goal of the original piece of legislation: to help veterans make the transition from combat to civilian life. Currently, the bill is called the Montgomery GI Bill (MGIB).

In laymen’s terms, Uncle Sam will pay up to $1,034 each month for up to 36 months while a veteran is enrolled at a higher education institution. “Thirty-six months” translates into four years at a school with a nine-month academic calendar. And this seems like a fair trade—these young men and women are dying for us, after all. The problem is that, because there is so much red tape surrounding the MGIB benefits, some college students aren’t getting their money on time.

Andy Davis, a 24-year-old veteran attending the University of Minnesota, sent in his certification at the beginning of fall semester and waited for months for his money to come, but it never did. He called the university and they told him to call the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA said the university had called in his enrollment, and then taken it back, claiming he was no longer enrolled there.

“By that time, my student account had gone in the red [and] I couldn’t pay my bill” Davis said.

He and Tony Richter founded Comfort for Courage—a student-led transition center for veterans enrolled at the University of Minnesota—in November of 2004. They started by sending care packages overseas: “a ton” of them each month for 10 months. Davis wanted the group he started to have a physical location and they got one this fall.

On Nov. 15, 2005, Davis and Richter hosted Comfort for Courage’s grand opening of its new Veterans Transition Center, located in Eddy Hall. The grand opening, held in the lobby of the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center, was an open forum for students, veterans, supporters, business members and university staff. Davis is a big man with an intimidating figure. His hair is in a short buzz-cut and his face is clean-shaven. Davis’s upper body seems to overpower his lower half and the extra weight he carries pushes out his tight Comfort for Courage (C4C) T-shirt. He’s big, but it’s a solid kind of big—the kind that could knock you out with one punch. Davis spoke quietly at the grand opening, his voice contrasting with his intimidating physical appearance. He appeared relaxed as he addressed the crowd of about 50 guests, and spoke like a seasoned politician.

Davis is a three-time combat veteran, having served two tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq with the 75th Ranger Regiment of the U.S. Army. The U had a 25 percent dropout rate for veterans when Davis started the group. These numbers are staggering. “That was a big piece of starting this center,” Davis says of the difficulties many veterans face in getting their benefits on time.

Other veterans who attended the grand opening shared Davis’ story. “The biggest problem right now is the money,” said one military veteran at the grand opening. “They told me that I wouldn’t expect any money from the VA until December 6th.” (A full three months after he sent in his confirmation papers.)

I met Andy Davis at the new center located in the basement of Eddy Hall. The office was given to the group by the university. I imagined the office to be to be full of uniformed vets, with an American flag in the corner and maybe a couple of desks with computers. When I walked in, the office reminded me more of a janitor’s closet. Davis looked like a typical college student in jeans and a sweater typing away on his notebook computer.

Davis said he misses the camaraderie in the military, and socializing is very different on such a large college campus. “You’re going from an environment where everything is dictated to an environment that’s pretty laid back,” Davis said of the transition from combat to classroom.

Davis came back when he was 23, and found it hard sitting next to 18-year-olds in the classroom. He didn’t feel too much older physically, but he felt much older mentally than the recent high school grads. Davis’s pride in the military is evident in the way he talks about it. He’s used to being around people who would take bullets for him, not the high school students pretending to be in college who protested on campus this fall. One such protestor approached Davis to ask if he wanted to participate. Davis asked if they were anti-military or anti-war and he was told supporting troops condones the war.

“There are times like that where you’re like, ‘Wow, I’m in a totally different place than I’ve ever been,’” Davis said. “It’s not a pro-war or anti-war feeling for me; it’s a feeling of ‘Do these people understand?’”

For many students it’s hard to distinguish between the ideal and the individuals who are directly involved. Davis didn’t pick a fight with Iraq or Afghanistan, but he bears the brunt of what can become the anti-anything-connected-to-war attitude of a liberal student body.

Davis was an Army Ranger with the 3rd BN-75th Ranger Regiment. This regiment was showcased in the movie Black Hawk Down. This operation doesn’t get a lot of combat time, but the time it gets is some of the worst. The Rangers are the first-in, first-out, getting-down-and-dirty-on-the-front-lines regiment.

“I buried my 29th friend that was killed in action two weeks ago, down in Chicago,” said Davis of his memories of the war, his voice getting the slightest bit choked up. “War is war and it’s a tough thing to get out of your head.”

To me, the fact that Davis knows exactly how many fellow soldiers he has buried is remarkable. It wasn’t “I’ve buried somewhere around 30 soldiers,” or “a lot of my fellow soldiers were killed,” but it was an exact number, a little counter in his brain that has gradually increased over the years. And the forthcoming nature with which he spoke suggested this number is always on his mind.

Davis’s GI Bill benefits have been late two years in a row now. Davis thinks the VA didn’t adequately prepare themselves for the large groups of young men and women coming back from overseas. Soldiers are signing up for college benefits, and after serving overseas, they want to use them. These days, being a career serviceman isn’t as common. The problem is one we’ve seen before: the government got itself into something it’s not prepared to get out of any time soon.

The military doesn’t do a great job of helping veterans make the transition back to student life, Davis says. Most college students come from public high schools, the breeding grounds for a higher education. They have counselors at their beck and call, walking them through things like applications, essays and entrance exams. Veterans usually come to college right out of service. They probably picked a college in their home state that sounded good by doing Google searches from a computer in Iraq. The transition is a quick one and it’s more of an abrupt change than a transition. As of this writing, there are 1.4 million active service members in the U.S. Armed Forces, according to the Department of Defense. Sixty-nine percent of them are between the ages of 20 and 34, compared to 21 percent in that range of the U.S. population.

At 24, Andy Davis is the average veteran. The average veterans probably went into the military to buy a little time before making a life-changing decision, and they took pay cuts for a year (you must receive $100 pay reductions each month for the first 12 months of service to qualify for the MGIB) to get their education—and now they want it. There’s no way the VA is going to fix this problem anytime soon, so centers like Comfort for Courage are going to have to suffice for now. Advocacy groups will bring attention to the issue, and hopefully give some of these young men and women the support they need to stay in school and move on with their lives.