VFW Action Sparks Pentagon to Delay Education Policy Changes

Late last week the Pentagon announced it will delay implementing new education policies that would have drastically affected service members using tuition assistance, or TA.

On Jan. 1, 2012, the Department of Defense was scheduled to implement a new Memorandum of Understanding for schools to accept TA on behalf of enrolled service members. Unfortunately, leading institutions across higher education found the new MOU to be prohibitively restrictive, requiring many schools to drastically overhaul administrative and academic policies by January 1, or be locked out of the TA program.

The VFW heard from several top schools that stood to lose their TA eligibility should the new MOU take effect, which is why VFW advocates called on Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to delay the MOU’s implementation, pending further review.

The new MOU is designed to offer more transparency for potential students and curb predatory and deceptive practices among schools of questionable quality which were potentially eligible to participate in the TA program. The VFW has consistently applauded the Pentagon for taking decisive action to ensure service members have access to quality education, but the new MOU caused many leading institutions to balk at the binding requirements, while some of the schools the Pentagon sought to reign in had no problem signing the new memorandum.

The Pentagon once again listened by extending the signing deadline to March 12, 2012, which will provide schools more time to hammer out details and sign the comprehensive MOU to ensure quality educational opportunities for service members without limiting student access or compromising academic integrity.

The VFW was not the lone voice in the fight, as many of the nation’s leading veterans’ advocates and 52 bipartisan Senate offices also sent letters to Secretary Panetta, asking for a delay in implementing the new MOU.

According to the Pentagon, more than 320,000 service members took advantage of TA in 2011. The VFW has been a strong proponent of the TA program’s value, which helps service members not only hone skills they will use in the military, but also prepares them for careers beyond military service.

Your VFW will continue to advocate for quality educational options for American service members and veterans, ensuring benefits like TA and the GI Bill continue to prepare our nation’s future leaders. If you have a success story from the military’s TA program that you would like to share, please tell us in the comments section below.

(Image: VFW letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, asking for a delay in the implementation of the new Tuition Assistance MOU.)

VFW Joins CBS and Google to Film Holiday Shout-outs to the Troops

This week, VFW’s Washington office joined CBS and Google to help film shout-outs to the troops from members of Congress in time for Christmas and the holiday season as part of a larger partnership between CBS, Google and VFW (watch Gary Sinise's tribute by clicking here).

The film crew set up their equipment in Omar E. Ketchum Hall at the VFW building on Capitol Hill on Monday and Tuesday, and invited senators and congressman to stop by and share their holiday greetings with the brave men and women deployed overseas this year.

Thirty-three congressmen and senators from 22 states took advantage of the time to visit the VFW building and express their gratitude to the men and women whose service will keep them away from their homes and their loved ones this holiday season. Others uploaded videos to the youtube.com/veterans site on their own.

The videos are available as part of the Google For Veterans campaign, googleforveterans.com, and are hosted on Google’s Veterans Channel on YouTube. To view the videos, click here, and scroll over the state from which you would like to view greetings. Participants who recorded holiday messages include:

Alabama – Reps. Robert Aderholt and Spencer Bachus
Arkansas – Rep. Steve Womack California – Rep. Jim Costa
Connecticut – Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Rep. Jim Himes
Delaware – Sen. Tom Carper 
Florida –Reps. Ander Crenshaw, Rich Nugent, and Steve Southerland 
Georgia – Sen. Johnny Isakson
Illinois – Reps. Bob Dold and Randy Hultgren 
Louisiana – Reps. Charles Boustany and Jeff Landry
Maryland – Sen. Ben Cardin Michigan – Rep. Dan Benishek
Minnesota – Rep. Erik Paulsen
Nevada – Rep. Joe Heck New Jersey – Reps. Rob Andrews and Leonard Lance
North Carolina – Sen. Kay Hagan
Ohio – Reps. Marcy Kaptur and Jean Schmidt
Oregon – Rep. Kurt Schrader
Pennsylvania – Rep. Jason Altmire
Rhode Island – Rep. Joe Ciciline
Tennessee – Reps. Scott DesJarlais and Chuck Fleischmann
Texas – Reps. Charles Gonzalez and Ted Poe
Washington – Rep. Dave Reichert

Feel free to upload your own holiday message at youtube.com/veterans.

(Image: Illinois Rep. Bob Dold films his shout out to the troops in Omar E. Ketchum Hall at the VFW building in Washington, D.C. Photo by Joe Davis.)

VFW Helps Close USERRA Loophole

Many members of the National Guard and Reserve are familiar with the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, or USERRA, which guarantees that their civilian jobs will be waiting for them once their military service obligation is complete.

However, the VFW and other advocates on Capitol Hill recently learned of a loophole in USERRA policy that exempts Transportation Security Administration employees from the law's protections.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Congress created TSA to strengthen air travel safety. In an effort to quickly stand up and deploy thousands of new security workers, TSA's administrator was given broad authority to hire, fire and promote officers to meet the demand. As a result of this broad authority, transportation security officers, or TSOs, were included in a select category of federal employees considered vital to national security, and therefore exempt from labor laws like USERRA.

Though TSA has said it voluntarily complies with USERRA, Reserve Component service members are not ensured justice, should they believe TSA had violated their employment and reemployment rights — an issue that VFW discovered has affected Reserve Component TSA employees in the past.

With the help and support of VFW's legislative advocates on Capitol Hill, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) introduced a bill today to close this loophole in USERRA protection.

“The Transportation Security Administration employs 3,500 reservists and another 15,000 veterans,” said Lieberman. “The agency frequently recruits veterans, reservists, and members of the National Guard — and benefits from their employment. We should make it easier for TSA to attract the best and brightest by ensuring these men and women have the job protections they need and deserve.

“TSOs find themselves in a clearly unjust and inadvertent position. Therefore, the legislation my colleagues and I have introduced would simply require TSA to comply with USERRA, providing TSOs the protection of reemployment, to which every other type of worker, in both the private and public sectors, is eligible.”

In addition to Lieberman, the bill has four other original cosponsors: Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), and Mary Landrieu (D-La.). Other cosponsors include Sens. John Tester (D-Mont.) and Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii.). Introducing a companion bill in the House were Reps. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), Bill Owens (D-N.Y.) and Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.).

“This much-needed change in TSA policy sets a new standard in the federal government’s full support of our veterans," said VFW Legislative Director Raymond C. Kelley. "This fix will not only give service members working at TSA the reemployment rights they have earned, it will also ensure TSA has unfettered access to the best and brightest our military has to offer. This is the right thing to do, and the VFW fully supports all efforts to honor these men and women by applying USERRA protections to TSA."

VFW advocates say that the bill is a relatively simple, no-cost fix that should easily gain bipartisan momentum in both the Senate and the House. Your VFW will continue to follow this bill as it moves through Congress, so check back regularly for updates.

VFW Washington Office Remembers Pearl Harbor

On Dec. 7, 1941, at 7:55 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time, the Japanese Empire launched a brutal attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet, anchored in Pearl Harbor. The attack claimed the lives of more than 2,400 American servicemen – 1,200 of whom remain entombed within the sunken USS Arizona at the bottom of Pearl Harbor – drawing the United States into World War II.

Soon after the attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed Congress, calling for an official declaration of war and labeling Dec. 7, 1941, as a “date which will live in infamy.”

This morning, VFW Washington Office staff joined Congressional leaders and Pearl Harbor survivors in the Gold Room of the Rayburn House Office Building to reflect on the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The event was organized by students from American University and brought together Pearl Harbor survivors Jay Groff and his wife, Kay, Steve Krawczyk and Daniel Curts, who shared their experiences and discussed the significance of remembering Pearl Harbor, and the men and women who gave their lives during the attack.

For veterans’ advocates, this year’s anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor is particularly somber because it marks the end of an era in American history with the formal dissolution of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, effective Dec. 31, 2011. Founded in 1958, the Congressionally-chartered organization once counted more than 18,000 veterans among its ranks. Over time, that number has dwindled to fewer than 3,000, making official business difficult to conduct and prompting organizational leaders to officially dissolve the organization at the end of this calendar year.

“We applaud the service and proud history of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, many members of which the VFW has proudly counted among our ranks over the past seven decades,” said VFW Legislative Director Ray Kelley, who was on hand for the Capitol Hill event. “The historical significance of December 7, 1941, must never be forgotten, which is why the VFW will continue to reflect on these attacks and honor the sacrifices of our nation’s Greatest Generation long after the last Pearl Harbor survivor passes on.”

VFW posts and members around the world also commemorated the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor today, to include VFW National Commander Richard L. DeNoyer, who attended ceremonies and laid a wreath on the USS Arizona Memorial this morning. If you would like to share how your Post remembered Pearl Harbor Day, please e-mail your photos and stories to the VFW Action Corps at vfwac@vfw.org.

Disturbing Trends for Young Vets in Latest Employment Figures

On Friday the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published its monthly employment situation, which showed a drop in unemployment among veterans -- particularly veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan -- but demonstrated disturbing trends for young veterans.

In November, 11.1 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan-era veterans were unemployed, a drop from 12.1 percent in October.

Unfortunately, this percentage still far eclipses the non-veteran unemployment rate, which fell to 8.1 percent in October, and the jobs market demonstrated other disconcerting trends for young veterans and women veterans in particular. Unemployment among young veterans rose to more than 37 percent in the last month, and unemployment among women veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan once again rose to more than 18 percent.

To the VFW, these trends indicate that overall jobs market seems to be improving, but that veterans of the current conflicts -- particularly young veterans who still have military obligations -- continue to face significant disadvantages in finding work once they return from overseas.

The trend among young veterans, ages 18-24, is particularly disturbing to the VFW because of what lies behind the numbers. Given the nature of military enlistment contracts, all veterans within this cohort still have a military obligation of some kind, meaning all are either drilling members of the National Guard and Reserve, members of the Inactive Ready Reserve, or IRR.

The VFW suspects that potential military obligations make these veterans unattractive to potential employers who may have to account for drill weekends, annual training, professional military education, or potential deployments.

Daniel Elkins, VFW legislative associate and a current Maryland National Guardsman, recently authored a white paper on the issue of Reserve Component, or RC, unemployment. In the white paper, Elkins called for unique tax incentives for employers to hire veterans with potential military obligations, stronger USERRA protections, and streamlined employment counseling within the RC force structure.

Elkins' white paper will be included as part of the VFW's legislative priorities book, which will be available when Congress reconvenes from the Christmas recess.

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama signed comprehensive veterans' employment legislation into law, which the VFW believes will help make veterans -- including RC service members -- more marketable to potential employers. To learn more about this legislation, called the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, click here.

The VOW to Hire Heroes Act includes new auditing and reporting metrics for transitional programs and veterans' job placement programs, which the VFW hopes to use to help evaluate program success and identify best practices at a time when more and more service members are returning from deployments overseas.

Your VFW will monitor the implementation of this bill closely, and continuously keep you posted on the employment situation for today's veterans. Check back regularly for updates.

VFW Protects TRICARE Recipients as Defense Authorization Clears Senate

The VFW scored a major victory this week in the fight to preserve military retirees' health care benefits, effectively killing a toxic proposal to the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, that could have significantly raised TRICARE premiums for retirees at the whim of Pentagon bureaucrats for years to come.

The proposal, SA 1203 to the NDAA, S. 1864, would have allowed the Pentagon to set rate increases to TRICARE premiums on a yearly basis, encouraging disproportionate cost shifting to TRICARE beneficiaries in an effort to generate program savings.

Upon learning of the amendment, the VFW sent a letter to all Senate offices and mobilized its grassroots Action Corps, encouraging senators to vote no on the proposal, should it gain momentum.

In response to the overwhelming pressure from VFW veterans' advocates, the amendment was formally withdrawn on the Senate floor while the NDAA was up for discussion.

"This is a true testament to the power of our Action Corps volunteers and the tireless efforts of VFW's advocates across the country," said VFW Executive Director Bob Wallace. "The VFW has sent a loud message to Washington that we will stand to protect the earned benefits of our brothers and sisters-in-arms."

The NDAA passed the Senate on Thursday by a vote of 93-7. The bill must now be reconciled with the House version before it can be sent to the President for his signature.

The VFW is one of the lone voices on Capitol Hill fighting to protect military retiree health care benefits. This summer, VFW members passed a resolution at the National Convention in San Antonio, vowing to opposed all proposed TRICARE fee increases. This week, the VFW successfully defended this resolution by ensuring the TRICARE amendment would not proceed.

Your VFW will continue to track the NDAA as it moves through conference and on to the White House for signing. If you would like to become involved with the VFW Action Corps, sign up for the Washington Weekly eNewsletter at www.vfw.org/weekly, and check back regularly with this blog for updates.