Posted on Mar 20, 2018
SGT Team Leader
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I recently put in for my GI Bill Benefits and my rating came back at 60%. I made an appeal since the only thing they counted was my deployment, and I am sitting on 200+ days of various orders from various schools. I was denied the appeal and was told that none of them were over 30 days so they do not count. My issue with that is (as I have seen it happens a lot) is the orders INTENTIONALLY being split to deny Reserves the extra benefits.

It is too late for me since my orders are completed, but I have a few soldiers getting ready to go on a course that is over 30 days, and the unit is making them RST Drill days to bring it under 30 days. I have already been screwed out of 40%, so if anyone has found a workaround to get these soldiers the benefits they SHOULD be earning already, that would be awesome.
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Responses: 4
SFC Andrew Miller
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There really is no way around the service requirements and my understanding is that the duration of schools and limiting to under 30 days has more to do with force strength reporting than trying to deny benefits to anyone. I have not researched it extensively, but I have been told that before.

I would recommend using Tuition Assistance before using GI Bill. There are many regionally accredited schools out there with tuition below the $250/semester hour cap for TA. If you were planning on attending full time it wouldn't be enough to cover the whole year, so that is one drawback. It only covers 16 semester hours per year.

Also if you use TA benefits you can save your GI Bill benefits for later in hopes of attaining additional AD time to add.

Here is a good tool to compare schools that are allowed to accept TA.

https://www.dodmou.com/TADECIDE/

I also recommend to anyone else to use the GI Bill comparison tool prior to converting to Post 9/11 GI Bill, because it might be advantageous to use one of the others first depending on the situation.

https://www.vets.gov/gi-bill-comparison-tool
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SSG Environmental Specialist
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I can tell you some reserve units split orders over 30 days for one simple reason, if you go over 28 days, your unit cannot pay you. The soldier has to go to finance and apply for pay and in some cases this places hardship on that soldier. By splitting the orders your unit can pay you and ensure your pay is there as soon as that set of orders has been served.
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PO1 Mary Vermont
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Wow that sucks! Military playing same game as civilian companies, to screw employees out of benifits
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SSG Edward Tilton
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I was a victim of the same thing. I can't figure a way around it. The ABCMR was no help
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