1.1 	A resolution
1.2 	exhorting Congress to reform the federal Montgomery GI Bill for the Selected 
1.3 	Reserves to permit members of the National Guard and reserves who have been 
1.4 	mobilized into federal active duty in support of current wars to receive and use their 
1.5 	federal educational benefits following separation from active reserve status and final 
1.6 	discharge from the military.
1.7 	WHEREAS, the reserve component of the United States Armed Forces, consisting of the 
1.8 	National Guard and other reserves, comprises 1.1 million citizen-soldiers, or nearly  45 percent of 
1.9 	total United States military forces; and  
1.10 	WHEREAS, since the 9/11 terrorists attacks and the commencement of the wars in 
1.11 	Afghanistan and Iraq, over 550,000 members of the National Guard and reserves have been called 
1.12 	to federal active duty in support of those wars; and  
1.13 	WHEREAS, those reserve component troops have shared fully in the fighting and other 
1.14 	dangerous supporting military roles in those wars, and also comprise a proportionate share of 
1.15 	United States military casualties; and 
1.16 	WHEREAS, many of those reserve component troops have been mobilized multiple 
1.17 	times for the current wars, in many cases for as much as 18 months of active military service 
1.18 	for each deployment; and  
1.19 	WHEREAS, upon enlistment in the military, those reserve component troops were promised 
1.20 	certain postsecondary educational benefits, including 36 months of educational assistance under 
1.21 	the federal program entitled the Montgomery GI Bill for the Selected Reserves, or MGIB-SR; and
2.1 	WHEREAS, MGIB-SR Program benefits terminate upon the separation of the National 
2.2 	Guard or reserve member from active-reserve service, which typically occurs at the end of the 
2.3 	person's sixth year of military service, unless the member reenlists; and
2.4 	WHEREAS, due to lengthy and frequent mobilizations into active military service, many 
2.5 	National Guard and reserve members are unable to receive and use their promised MGIB-SR 
2.6 	benefits; and
2.7 	WHEREAS, the citizen-soldiers losing those promised benefits are the very patriots who 
2.8 	have provided the most national service and sacrifice in the current wars; and
2.9 	WHEREAS, Congress has now delayed nearly five years without extending the time-frame 
2.10 	for reserve component members to use these promised educational benefits; NOW, THEREFORE,
2.11 	BE IT RESOLVED by the Legislature of the State of Minnesota that it strongly and urgently 
2.12 	demands that Congress and the President move with all haste to reform the MGIB-SR Program 
2.13 	to permit members of the National Guard and other military reserves who have served in active 
2.14 	military duty to use their promised educational benefits following military service, irrespective of 
2.15 	whether or not those patriotic citizen-soldiers choose to reenlist in the National Guard or reserves.
2.16 	 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Congress and the President should make such reform 
2.17 	retroactively applicable to all National Guard and reserve members who have served in active 
2.18 	military duty since 9/11.
2.19 	BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Secretary of State of the State of Minnesota is 
2.20 	directed to prepare copies of this memorial and transmit them to the President of the United 
2.21 	States, the President and the Secretary of the United States Senate, the Speaker and the Clerk 
2.22 	of the United States House of Representatives, the chair of the Senate Committee on Armed 
2.23 	Services, the chair of the House Committee on Armed Services, and Minnesota's Senators and 
2.24 	Representatives in Congress.