No GI Bill for Oregon Marine reservists deployed to Honduras
No GI Bill for Oregon Marine reservists deployed to Honduras
By BENNETT HALL | Gazette-Times via AP | Published: December 25, 2016
CORVALLIS, Ore. — When Marine Corps reservist Daniel Ha was offered the chance to take part in a humanitarian mission to Honduras, he was excited for the opportunity.
The 24-year-old Corvallis resident had been drilling with his unit — the Springfield-based Engineer Services Company, Marine Combat Logistics Battalion 23 — one weekend a month and two weeks a year, but this would be his first full-fledged deployment.
. . .
Along with nearly 200 other Marine reservists, including 36 from Oregon, Ha was put on active duty in March. After three months of training at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, the group shipped out to the Gracias a Dios province of Honduras, where they spent the next six months as part of a Marine task force. While there, they built a schoolhouse, renovated a hospital and completed a number of other aid projects in rural areas of the Central American country.
. . .
Under a little-known legal authority called 12304b, the Pentagon can now call up reservists and National Guard members for active duty without any obligation to provide traditional benefits such as Post-9/11 G.I. Bill education assistance, early retirement and health insurance — all key incentives in recruiting the "citizen soldiers" who provide a crucial backup for America's regular armed forces.
More:
https://www.stripes.com/news/us/no-gi-bill-for-oregon-marine-reservists-deployed-to-honduras-1.446108
Editorials, etc.:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016173497
