GI Bill
Coverage of the GI Bill and related veterans’ affairs.
Several justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts, seemed sympathetic toward James Rudisill, who says the VA thwarted his dream of attending Yale’s divinity school.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul signed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Army veteran James Rudisill, who says the VA shortchanged him out of GI Bill benefits he earned over multiple service periods.
Tyson Manker’s case also could help thousands of other vets with post-traumatic stress disorder try to upgrade less-than-honorable discharges and get benefits.
Jim Rudisill has battled terrorists and white supremacists. Now, he’s won a fight for better benefits for himself and, his lawyers estimate, as many as 1.7 million of the nation’s longest-serving veterans.
Responding to a Sun-Times investigation, the Illinois Democrat says ‘bureaucratic error and complex calculations are preventing well-meaning veterans from transferring benefits they’ve earned.’
The problems with the Post-9/11 GI Bill persist. Even a retired Navy commander who served as an adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff was nearly cheated out of benefits.
But more military families still are on the hook for huge, unexpected bills for college they were promised would be covered by the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
A Marine veteran’s daughter, faced with a sudden and crushing debt, chose not to go to law school — after being accepted and putting down a deposit — rather than face more debt. A proposal in Congress promises a fix.
After Sun-Times reports, acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly has told a retired veteran that the debt will be waived. But others still face similar problems.
She and her father, a decorated war hero, ‘acted honorably and in good faith, and they should not have to shoulder the burden for the Navy’s bureaucratic failures,’ senator and others write.
After a Sun-Times report on an ex-DePaul student, others say the military told them they qualified for education benefits for their families, then said: That was wrong; pay it back.
His daughter’s GI Bill-covered tuition at DePaul was cut off. Now, she and her father, a vet who served 22 years and was honored for saving 2 lives in Afghanistan, have to repay more than $20,000.