Tell Gates and McCain "retention" is no reason to shaft troops

Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized Webb’s bill as a detriment to service retention efforts in an April 29 letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Gates also endorsed key features of the Graham bill without citing the bill by name or number. Clearly the Bush administration hopes that Graham and colleagues have put enough alluring features in S 2938 to draw bipartisan support away Webb’s bill. S 22 already has 58 co-sponsors in the Senate and 250 House members back a companion bill, HR 5740.

In battle over GI Bills, Webb still holds high ground
By Tom Philpott, Special to Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, May 3, 2008



In perhaps any other year, the new Republican plan for enhancing the Montgomery GI Bill, which Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) introduced this week with Sens. Richard Burr (N.C.) and John McCain (Ariz.), would win high praise from advocates for service members and veterans.

But as momentum builds on Capitol Hill to pass S. 22, Sen. Jim Webb’s hefty new GI Bill to replace MGIB for any service member – active, Guard or Reserve – with qualifying active duty service since the attacks of 9-11, the Republican plan still might be a few critical features short of an acceptable replacement for S 22 among leaders of GI Bill reform.

Graham’s bill, the Enhancement of Recruitment, Retention and Readjustment through Education Act (S 2938), is cleverly crafted and will seem generous in comparison to a more basic MGIB reform bill, HR 5684, which the House Veterans Affairs Committee endorsed April 29th.
go here for more
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=54499