Released 3/30/16 at Task and Purpose | Tags: Congressional Legislation, Veteran's Benefits
A report released March 30 found that the Department of Veterans Affairs has been excluding post-9/11 veterans with bad paper discharges from earned benefits at unprecedented rates and suggests this may be in violation of the 1944 GI Bill of Rights. According to Swords to Plowshares and National Veterans Legal Services Program, the VA has excluded 125,000 post-9/11 veterans without ever reviewing their service. This includes roughly 33,000 who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and amounts to 6.5% of all post-9/11 service members. In contrast, only 2.8% of Vietnam-era veterans and 1.7% of World War II-era veterans are excluded by the VA due to bad paper discharges.