SF 590

1st Engrossment - 85th Legislature (2007 - 2008) Posted on 12/15/2009 12:00am

A resolution
exhorting Congress to reform the federal Montgomery GI Bill for the Selected
Reserves to permit members of the National Guard and reserves who have been
mobilized into federal active duty in support of current wars to receive and use their
federal educational benefits following separation from active reserve status and final
discharge from the military.

WHEREAS, the reserve component of the United States Armed Forces, consisting of the
National Guard and other reserves, comprises 1.1 million citizen-soldiers, or nearly 45 percent of
total United States military forces; and

WHEREAS, since the 9/11 terrorists attacks and the commencement of the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, over 550,000 members of the National Guard and reserves have been called
to federal active duty in support of those wars; and

WHEREAS, those reserve component troops have shared fully in the fighting and other
dangerous supporting military roles in those wars, and also comprise a proportionate share of
United States military casualties; and

WHEREAS, many of those reserve component troops have been mobilized multiple
times for the current wars, in many cases for as much as 18 months of active military service
for each deployment; and

WHEREAS, upon enlistment in the military, those reserve component troops were promised
certain postsecondary educational benefits, including 36 months of educational assistance under
the federal program entitled the Montgomery GI Bill for the Selected Reserves, or MGIB-SR; and

WHEREAS, MGIB-SR Program benefits terminate upon the separation of the National
Guard or reserve member from active-reserve service, which typically occurs at the end of the
person's sixth year of military service, unless the member reenlists; and

WHEREAS, due to lengthy and frequent mobilizations into active military service, many
National Guard and reserve members are unable to receive and use their promised MGIB-SR
benefits; and

WHEREAS, the citizen-soldiers losing those promised benefits are the very patriots who
have provided the most national service and sacrifice in the current wars; and

WHEREAS, Congress has now delayed nearly five years without extending the time-frame
for reserve component members to use these promised educational benefits; NOW, THEREFORE,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Legislature of the State of Minnesota that it strongly and urgently
demands that Congress and the President move with all haste to reform the MGIB-SR Program
to permit members of the National Guard and other military reserves who have served in active
military duty to use their promised educational benefits following military service, irrespective of
whether or not those patriotic citizen-soldiers choose to reenlist in the National Guard or reserves.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Congress and the President should make such reform
retroactively applicable to all National Guard and reserve members who have served in active
military duty since 9/11.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Secretary of State of the State of Minnesota is
directed to prepare copies of this memorial and transmit them to the President of the United
States, the President and the Secretary of the United States Senate, the Speaker and the Clerk
of the United States House of Representatives, the chair of the Senate Committee on Armed
Services, the chair of the House Committee on Armed Services, and Minnesota's Senators and
Representatives in Congress.