Background—Unique Citizen Service Member/Veteran

The National Guard is unique among components of the Department of Defense in that it has the dual state and Federal mission. While serving operationally on Title 10 active duty status in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) or Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), National Guard units are under the command and control of the President. However, upon release from active duty, members of the National Guard return to the far reaches of their states as both veterans and continuing serving members of the Reserve Component but under the command and control of their governors. As a special branch of the Selected Reserves they train not just for their Federal missions but for their potential state active duty missions such as fire fighting, flood control and providing assistance to civil authorities in a variety of possible disaster scenarios.

While serving in their states, members are scattered geographically with their families as they hold jobs, own businesses, pursue academic programs and participate actively in their civilian communities. Against this backdrop, members of the National Guard remain ready to uproot from their families and civilian lives to serve their governor domestically or their President in distance parts of the globe as duty calls and to return to reintegrate within the same communities when their missions are accomplished.

Military service in the National Guard is uniquely community based. The culture of the National Guard remains little understood outside of its own circles. When the Department of Defense testifies before Congress stating its programmatic needs, it will likely recognize the indispensable role of the National Guard as a vital Operational Force in the Global War on Terror (GWOT) but it will say little about and seek less to redress the benefit disparities, training challenges and unmet medical readiness issues for National Guard members and their families at the state level before, during and after deployment. We continue to ask that they be given a fresh look with the best interests of the National Guard members and their families in mind.

Enhance Employability for Our National Guard Veterans by Amending 10 USC 1097c to Allow Employers to Offer Incentives for Them to Enroll in TRICARE Reserve Select and Decline Employer Sponsored Health Plans

TRICARE Reserve Select (TRS) has been available to members of the Reserve Components since October 2007 but it remains under subscribed with only 7% of the eligible population participating according to the Department of Defense.  This is surprising given the low monthly premium rates of $180.00 for family coverage and $47.51 for individual coverage

Under current law, 10 USC Section 1097c, employers of members of the Select Reserve cannot offer incentives to members of the Select Reserve to decline coverage under the Employer’s more expensive health care plan and enroll in less expensive TRICARE Reserve Select with the premiums paid  with pre tax dollars by their  employers .

The current law prevents our member veterans from leveraging their ability to be covered with low cost heath insurance as an inducement for prospective employers to hire them. It is a challenge for all of our unemployed members to convince employers that they are worth hiring in the face of the certainty of disruptive long term absences from deployments. Amending 10 USC 1097c would have the beneficial effect of   making our member veterans more attractive to potential employers because they would be less expensive to insure. This savings would loom large for employers now required to provide employees with health insurance under the new health care law.   

Support for Expanding the Transition Assistance Advisor Program

 The Yellow Ribbon Program needs to expand by statute the Transition Assistance Advisor (TAA) Program to at least three hundred positions managed by the Joint Staff of the National Guard Bureau under the auspices of the Department of Defense Office of Reintegration.  The “go to” feature of TAA makes it invaluable and personal to our members and their families to learn and understand the benefits programs that exist at the VA and elsewhere pre, during and after deployments. So many programs have proliferated during the current war that many members and family complain that that the information thrown at them at benefit briefings is like “drinking from a fire hose”. The reintegration briefers from the behavioral care staff of Johns Hopkins refuse to use “power point” because its lack of interactivity loses the trust and attention of the audience. The TAA program provides a necessary interactive and trustworthy alternative to the one time electronic briefing or the many lost in the shuffle web sites. TAA has staying power and simply put-it works. It needs to be resourced and sustained with statutory backing.

S. 842 to repeal the sunset of SCRA foreclosure and interest rate protections scheduled to expire December 31, 2010

As part of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, Congress strengthened the protections for our veterans under the Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act by extending both the 6% interest cap on pre deployment mortgage interest to one year after the period of military service and the stay against foreclosures from 90 days to nine months after the period of military service. Unfortunately, these protections are scheduled to sunset (expire) December 31, 2010.

 S. 842 sponsored by Senator Kerry in the Senate would repeal the pending sunset of these protections . There are no cosponsors yet in the Senate and currently no House companion bill to S. 842. These are important protections in a difficult economic environment which need to be maintained beyond this year. It will be difficult for our member veterans to fully concentrate on their civilian employment with the specter of subprime mortgage hikes and foreclosures following close on their heels as they return from deployments.

Veterans’ Preference Status for All Who Have Honorably Served in the National Guard and Reserve  

NGAUS recently received a letter from Monique Elling, a former member of the Delaware National Guard, who served honorably for ten years in domestic assignments but who has been denied veterans preference points because her only title 10 active duty time was in training status after enlistment. With her permission, a copy of her letter is set forth in the Appendix. Such restrictive definitions of veteran disrespect the honorable service of our members and unfairly restrict employment opportunities for otherwise qualified candidates. Veterans’ employment preference points must be extended to all those who have served honorably in the Select Reserve and active forces.

HR 3554—Amending the Post 9/11 GI bill to Recognize Title 32 Active Dutyy

Amid great celebration and expectations, the bill providing Educational Assistance for Members of the Armed Forces Who Serve After September 11, 2001, more commonly known as the Post 9/11 GI Bill, was hurriedly enacted as part of the Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2008 Public Law 110-252 but with one glaring omission; Congress excluded all National Guard Title 32 active duty service after 9/11 from qualifying for benefits under this program.

The impact of this legislation is that Congress has effectively denied benefits to our dedicated men and women who have served our country on Title 32 active duty post 9/11 as AGRs and in mobilized operations such as Operation Noble Eagle, Operation Jump Start, and in the critically needed airport security operations in the desperate days immediately following the 9/11 attacks on the homeland. What is particularly upsetting is the fact that the bill provides benefits for domestic active duty service of Reserve AGRs and other active forces on Title 10 orders who are performing virtually the identical service as our National Guard AGRs and other members on Title 32 orders who are denied the same benefits.

In a time of limited employment opportunities, our members need to b e given full opportunity, financial assistance and encouragement under the Post 9/11 GI Bill to pursue higher education to enhance their employability while waiting for the economy to correct. 

H.R. 3554, introduced by Representative David Loebsack (D-IA),with 94 current co sponsors  and its companion bill in the Senate, S. 1668, introduced by Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO), with 13 current  co sponsors  would include Title 32 active duty in the calculation of benefits under the Post 9/11 GI Bill. These bills will need broader co sponsorship and support in Congress to succeed.

The Congressional Budget Office has recently estimated the cost of HR 3554 at $1.14 billion over 10 years.  It is important to note that when it passed the Post 9/11 GI Bill, Congress rightfully disregarded its normal budgeting concerns which annually block legislation needed to  correct longstanding benefit inequities faced by the National Guard. Money was not an object when the post 9/11 GI Bill was enacted and it should not now be a bar to taking this corrective action.

H.R. 4318—Establishment of a Civilian Conservation Corps

HR 4318, introduced by Representative Marcy Kaptur, would establish a 21st century Civilian Conservation Corps to employ our citizens in public works projects on our public lands to relieve the distress of unemployment and homelessness.

A Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) would provide a particularly effective venue for veterans who are already trained to work and live as a team in the most challenging of environments. It would provide an imaginative spark to public service in this country that would give our veterans and all others employed in a CCC program a sense of ownership and pride in improving our nation. In a dispirited time for so many, a CCC program would raise the collective spirit of our nation by initiating meaningful projects to employ veterans that would protect the environment and provide the necessary  care and upkeep for our beautiful country.

Expanded Military Mental Health Care Training of Civilian Providers, Veterans and Families and Issuance of VA Voucher

The issues of veterans’ employment and mental health maintenance cannot be separated. Before veterans can maintain gainful employment in a challenged job environment, they must be able to maintain a workable level of mental health and establish supportive social networks.

The Rand Corporation in its study, “The Invisible wounds of War” reported that as of October 2007, 300,000 veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation enduring Freedom suffered from either PTSD or major depression, a number which has only grown in the interim. The harmful effects of these untreated invisible wounds on our veterans hinder their ability to work productively and live independently.

Rand emphatically recommended increasing the cadre of trained and certified providers and to deliver evidence based care to veterans whenever and wherever services are provided they are located. In addition to training providers, veterans and their families must be trained on how to recognize the signs of behavioral illness and how and where to obtain treatment for the same.

 In order to fully leverage the health care providers in our communities, veterans must have the ability to utilize trained and certified services in their communities wherever they are available. To facilitate this, the VA must issue a voucher card that will allow our veterans to seek fee based treatment with certified providers outside the brick and mortar of the Veterans Administration facilities which are often located hundreds of miles from a veteran in need. Requiring a veteran, once employed, to drive hundreds of miles to obtain care at a VA facility necessitates the veteran taking time off from work which most employers can ill afford

APPENDIX

-----Original Message-----

From: Elling, Monique A Mrs CTR US NG NGB ARNG [mailto:Monique.Elling@us.army.mil]
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 1:14 PM
To: Richard Green
Subject: The Unstatus Soldier (UNCLASSIFIED)

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

Caveats: FOUO

Mr. Green,

Thank you for taking time out of your schedule to listen to my concerns.  I was an officer in the Delaware National Guard who served over ten years- seven of which were full-time as a "military technician".  I've recently been applying for Federal jobs and on the job application it ask "are a veteran of the armed forces?".  My instinctive reply to the question was "yes".

Naturally ten years of service in the Army National Guard qualifies me as a veteran.  The question of my veteran status was proceeded by the quantifying statement "served honorably on active duty in the armed forces of the United States for 180 days or more (Reserve and National Guard active duty for training does not qualify)".  It's not a matter of wanting monetary benefits but the Federal Government's recognition my years of service.

Counterintuitive to everything I had been trained to do and lived, I had to put "no".  No, my ten years of training, operational exercises and drills are not quantifiable to 180 days of active duty.  No, having to meet the same standards and required to attend the same schools as my active duty brothers is not quantifiable to 180 days of active duty.  Is it a matter of perceived sacrifice?  I too, upon the ramp-up of the war spent days and weeks away from my family preparing Soldiers and families for deployments.  In fact, during the first serge of the war I was taking care of my father with cancer.  I often found myself teetering between traveling to mobilization stations preparing my Soldiers and managing the care of my father.  My father lost his battle with cancer.  A part of me blames myself for splitting my time and not making him my sole priority.  I share the next story not because I fancy morbidity, but to use my personal experience to illustrate the shared sacrifice of our "Citizen" Soldiers to their "Active" counterparts.  I received my commission through the state OCS program.  The length of the program was approximately 15 months.  Twelve months into the program I became pregnant.  Unaware of my pregnancy, I continued training and subsequently miscarried.  I was told it was more than likely the physical stress I subjected upon myself.  I've never publicly shared this story with anyone.  I now gladly share but for the larger good it may do in the effort of changing the narrow definition of a "veteran."

To add insult to injury, I recently interviewed and was chosen for a position working for the National Guard Bureau but it was revoked due to my reinstatement eligibility status.  I found out that due to the fact military technicians are "excepted" status Federal employees they cannot be considered for employment when the position is opened to only competitive status and reinstatement eligible Federal employees.  I researched the issue further and found out there were exceptions to allowing certain "excepted" status candidates to compete through the Department of Defense Interchange Agreement.  Upon further investigation I was shocked to find out that the National Guard does not have such an agreement with Department of Defense.  I am perplexed that the National Guard Bureau, the very agency that oversees the various State National Guards is closed to military technicians.  Again I ask, what is my status?  I don't received the same status of my fellow guardsmen who are AGR and yet I'm not afforded the same treatment as a competitive Federal employee.  Ironically, I'm hunted by a phrase I use to tell my Soldiers about the equality of each Soldier regardless of color, nationality or sex.  "Despite all of our differences we are all green on the inside". 

Again, I thank you for your time and hope that my experience may help another

Soldier.  Unstatus but still "green" on the inside.   

Sincerely,

Monique A. Elling
IIF Data
Senior Analyst
703.601.7576

Don't wait to strike the iron when it's hot.  Strike it and make it hot!

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: FOUO