Service members nearing the end of their careers will find it easier to transfer new post-9/11 G.I. Bill education benefits to their spouse or children, under Department of Defense regulations.
And service members who elect to transfer G.I. Bill benefits will be allowed to modify or revoke that decision at any time, thus keeping control of a benefit with an average start value estimated at $75,000 to $90,000.
Bob Clark, assistant director of accession policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, discussed the transferability feature of the new G.I. Bill during a recent interview.
The details should comfort many long-serving careerists, including enlisted members facing high-year tenure rules or officers facing mandatory retirement who worried about being denied transferability because they might not meet a requirement in law to serve four additional years.
Clark said the four-year requirement will be relaxed, and for some waived entirely, for individuals near retirement. Here are the transferability details:
Unused benefits, up to the full 36 months, can be transferred. To transfer benefits, members must have served a minimum of six years and commit to serving four more from the date a benefit transfer is approved. However, exceptions — one permanent and five temporary — will be allowed to the four-year added service requirement.
Temporary exceptions. Defense officials will allow five other waivers to the four-year requirement of additional service for categories of members nearing retirement eligibility or with retirement orders in hand.
Granting these exceptions will help force managers, Clark said. Without them, the services would see thousands of retirement-eligible service members trying to stay four years longer to qualify for G.I. Bill transferability. That could have “a very negative impact on our force profiles,” Clark said.
There are five rules that sunset in 2013.
1. Members who will have 20 years of service by Aug. 1 may transfer G.I. Bill benefits to an immediate family member and face no additional service requirement.
2. Members with approved orders to retire on or after Aug. 1, but before July 1, 2010, will not have to serve added time to transfer benefits. This is to avoid forcing the services and members to change set retirement dates in the next year or so.
3. Members who first become retirement eligible on or after Aug. 1, but before Aug. 1, 2010, will be required to serve one additional year from the date that transfer of G.I. Bill benefits is approved.
4. Members who become retirement eligible on or after Aug. 1, 2010, but before Aug. 1, 2011, will have to serve two additional years from the date that a benefit transfer is approved.
5. Members who become retirement eligible on or after Aug. 1, 2011, but before Aug. 1, 2012, will have to serve three additional years after benefit transfer is approved.
Sustained eligibility. After transfer of benefits, spouse eligibility will not be affected by divorce, and children will stay eligible even if they marry. But the member retains ownership of the benefit and can modify or revoke transfer at any time without explanation. Also, the G.I. Bill benefit cannot be treated by judges as property to be shared in a divorce.
More information is online at: www. defenselink.mil/home/ features/2009/0409_gibill/
E-mail milupdate@aol.com.
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