FAIRFAX, Va.  – President Barack Obama said Monday a new GI Bill for those who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan is an investment in both a new generation of veterans and the future of America.

The Post-9/11 GI Bill is the most comprehensive education benefit offered to veterans since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the original GI Bill for World War II veterans in 1944. In the next decade, $78 billion is expected to be paid out under it.

“We do this not just to meet our moral obligation to those who sacrificed greatly on our behalf, on behalf of the country,” said Obama, speaking at a celebration rally at George Mason University. “We do it because these men and women must now be prepared to lead our nation in the peaceful pursuit of economic leadership in the 21st century.”

The maximum benefit under the law rolled out Saturday will allow every eligible veteran, serviceman and woman, Reservist and National Guard member to attend a public college or university for free for four years. They are also eligible for a monthly housing stipend and up to $1,000 a year for books.

Those who attend a private institution or graduate school can receive financial assistance up to the cost of a public college in the state. About 1,100 schools are offering additional scholarships matched by the VA.

Obama noted that many of the 1.9 million troops who have deployed in support of the recent wars joined the military knowing they’d have to go and fight somewhere. He said military members have endured multiple tours in grueling combat.

“The contributions that servicemen and women can make to our nation do not end when they take off that uniform,” Obama said. “We owe a debt to all who served and when we repay that debt to those bravest Americans among us, then we are investing in our future.”

Service members who agree to serve four more years in the military can opt to transfer the benefit to their spouse or kids. It’s anticipated that nearly a half million veterans or their family members could participate in the first year.

More than 100,000 claims have already been processed, and more than 25,000 service members have applied to use the transfer benefit.

The legislation has been widely praised by veterans groups, but there have been concerns that universities and the VA could be overwhelmed, in part, because of the complexity of the benefit. There have been complaints that veterans attending private schools in states that keep public tuition low face a huge disparity in what they receive.

The legislation was authored by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. He was joined by several other veterans in Congress in getting it passed.

On the Net:

Veterans Affairs Department site on new GI Bill

Defense Department site on new GI Bill

Toll-free VA phone number on GI Bill benefits: 1-888-GIBILL-1 (1-888-442-4551)

FORT BRAGG, N.C.  – The nation owes not only gratitude but tangible assistance to the nation’s military and their families, and she’ll make that a focus of her time in the White House, first lady Michelle Obama says.

Underscoring her commitment to the plight of America’s military families, Mrs. Obama used a trip to Fort Bragg as a stage for her first television interviews since the inauguration. One, with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” aired Friday morning.

In the interview she said she wanted military families to know they have a friend in the White House.

“It hurts. It hurts,” Mrs. Obama said of hearing about military families on food stamps. “These are people who are willing to send their loved ones off to, perhaps, give their lives – the ultimate sacrifice. But yet, they’re living back at home on food stamps. It’s not right, and it’s not where we should be as a nation.”

“I think that’s one of my jobs, is to try and shed some light on some of these issues,” she told ABC, “to not just be in that conversation with military spouses and hear those stories, but to take that information back to the administration to share it with the nation, so that we can think again about how we can better support these families.”

At another point in the interview, Mrs. Obama said she feels optimistic about the economy, notwithstanding the virtual daily grind of bad news.

“We’re at a time when we’re going to have to try a lot of things,” she said. But Mrs. Obama also said she has faith that things will get better and that “our current commander in chief will see us through.”

She called her husband a “focused” and “clear-thinking” man.

On Thursday, soldiers warmly welcomed the first lady to Fort Bragg, a sprawling military base in North Carolina named for a Carolinian, Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg. The crowd greeted her with applause and cheers and hugs and took pictures with the wife of President Barack Obama. She mingled in a cafeteria and then met privately with military spouses. Later, she read “The Cat in the Hat” to a group of preeschoolers.

But while much of the substantive discussion about policy and the struggles facing military families took place behind closed doors, she used a brief speech in nearby Fayetteville to implore Americans to support the military members in their community.

“Our soldiers and their families have done their duty – and they do it without complaint,” Mrs. Obama said. “And we as a grateful nation must do ours – do everything in our power to honor them by supporting them.”

Though she praised the Fayetteville community for providing a base for soldiers at Fort Bragg, she also noted that soldiers aren’t confined to the nation’s military installations. She asked civilians to seek out the National Guard and Army Reserve personnel in their communities to offer support.

“I encourage everyone out there, within the sound of my voice, to reach out on your own – through schools, PTA, little leagues, churches, workplaces – and find out if there’s a soldier or a soldier’s family right there in the community who needs a little extra support,” she said in her speech. “They’re there. Something
as simple as offering help with car pool duty can make the world of difference to a parent who’s trying to hold the family together during a very stressful time.”

Sgt. 1st Class Ashlyn Lewis, 31, of Indianapolis, said it was a remarkable experience to see the first lady in the cafeteria at Fort Bragg. She said the Obamas have a lot of work ahead of them to shore up deficiencies in the military’s medical system.

“Right now the biggest concern would be taking care of the vets, making sure that the people that are coming home are getting the proper medical care – not just for the Iraqi or Afghanistan vets, but also, there are a lot of Vietnam vets who haven’t been receiving the proper care,” Lewis said. “I believe (the Obamas) are headed in the right direction, but it’s going to be a lot of work.”

American soldiers can hump 60-pound packs through the broiling desert, kill for their country and die for it, but they can’t always vote for their commander in chief.
 
A solution has long been proposed: Just get rid of the Byzantine process which forces those in far-flung battle zones to vote by mail that must be delivered to thousands of local election districts across the United States.

But the Pentagon has found that bringing military voting into the 21st century is not so simple.

The number of absentee military ballots applied for that ultimately get counted is consistently low. In the last federal election, only about 30 percent of overseas military ballots were tallied, according to data from the federal Election Assistance Commission, which monitors election problems, and the Pew Center on the States.

Change won’t come in time for the November presidential election, when record numbers of voters are expected to decide between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama. For soldiers, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The winner may well decide how long they stay in battle, and how soon they come home.

No one knows why some 70 percent of overseas military ballots weren’t recorded in 2006. No one keeps centralized records on military ballots or voter turnout. But anecdotal evidence collected from local voting districts, which number more than 7,000, points to ballots that arrived late, ballots not properly filled out and ballots mailed to the wrong location – most of which get discarded. Then there are the ballots of troops who, for whatever reason, never mailed them back at all.

Contributing to the confusion are states and local election districts with competing and sometimes confounding rules governing overseas ballots. And the mail-in process can take up to 60 days from start to finish, even though many absentee ballots weren’t available until this month.

Because she would like to see the Iraq war end, Army Capt. Holly Landes, a 29-year-old veterinarian from Augusta, Ga., wants her vote to count. “I do know that this war is taking a toll on the country, and I would be happy to see it shortened,” she said at Camp Speicher, a military installation near Tikrit in northern Iraq where she cares for bomb- and drug-sniffing dogs.

But Landes, an athletic soldier who wore camouflage and a handgun strapped to her thigh as she negotiated a spitting sandstorm, wasn’t sure her first-time vote from abroad would arrive in her home county on time, based on complaints from fellow soldiers.

“Some of them have expressed concerns that they haven’t gotten the ballots until the day before elections,” the captain said.

Voting in this election is particularly important, she said, “because it’s a difference between staying in and pulling out … So it would be nice if it were a little easier and they had more confidence in the system.”

Her concerns are mild in comparison to comments from reservists far from active duty, who can comment publicly without fear of reprimand.

“Why are we imposing on military personnel a system that is more onerous than the ones civilians use?” asked Bob Carey, a senior fellow at the National Defense Committee, a private advocacy group. Carey, a 23-year Navy reservist who participated in Desert Storm, blames politicians and Pentagon bureaucracy with failing to find a process that works.

“I can speak out,” Carey said. “The active duty soldier duty soldier cannot. They are not allowed to publicly chastise their superiors, with good reason. It’s called mutiny.”

Voting problems have been around since the Truman administration, Carey said. “This has been going on for 50 years and nothing has changed. Politicians and elected officials have not done anything. The DOD (Department of Defense) has said there is no problem.”
 
This is how military overseas voting works: A registered voter must request, in writing, an absentee ballot from the local election district where he or she last lived. That can take up to 30 days. The soldier waits to receive a paper absentee ballot, then fills it out and mails it back. That can take another 30 days.

There is a long list of things that can wrong with that process – starting with mail getting lost in the U.S. Postal Service or in the Military Postal Service Agency, which ships correspondence by military channels. Mail can sit undelivered if heavy fighting stops supply convoys, or if limited space requires something more important be delivered – ammunition, for example. And because the military is often on the move, ballots can arrive on bases where soldiers are no longer assigned.

Carey favors Internet voting – something the Pentagon championed in 2004 only to abandon after spending $25 million and meeting critics who said online ballots were vulnerable to fraud.

But in military camps in Afghanistan and Iraq, Internet access is often more prevalent than indoor toilets and phone service.

Carey is working with The Pew Center on the States to craft a nationwide military voting law that would eliminate conflicting local regulations about such issues as whether ballots can be faxed or sent as an attachment via e-mail.

Seventeen states and territories allow some type of e-mail service to soldiers, but the rules greatly vary.

Most allow voting by fax, but again under different regulations. Ohio, for example, allows absentee ballots to be faxed – but only during a period that begins 35 days before the election. Alabama, New York and Wyoming, on the other hand, don’t allow faxed ballots at all.

“People don’t think of the military when they come up with these rules,” said Samuel Wright, a retired Navy Reserve captain who’s been pushing military voting reform for 32 years. “It’s an injustice that those who give the most to protect our rights are not able to exercise those rights.”

The Defense Department’s Federal Voting Assistance Program provides online help for service members trying to vote from overseas. But Pentagon inspector general reports conducted since 2000 have shown that less than 50 percent of surveyed soldiers knew who provided voting assistance in their units. A 2006 audit showed that only about 25 percent of respondents were aware of the government’s military voting site.

There is a final option for military voters. The Federal Voting Assistance Program and others provide online access to the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot, which can be downloaded, filled in and mailed by service members. But it is limited to federal races, and can only be used by registered voters who’ve already requested an absentee ballot from their local election official, but haven’t received it.

“Most of the military is interested in voting for all offices,” said Wright. “The county commissioner, the state legislature. They deserve to get the real ballot, for all offices.”

Wright also considers online ballots the best solution to an antiquated system.

“You can send a billion dollars by secure electronic means. The Pentagon can send top-secret information by secure electronic means,” he said. “But your ballot still has to go by snail mail.”

Not everyone hates the system for casting an absentee ballot. To many soldiers, it’s just another form in the military’s never-ending stack of papers to be filled out. “At least here we have the ability to go right to the (base) post office and get them stamped,” said Lt. Col. Theresa Vancort of Schenectady, N.Y., a National Guard member stationed at Camp Phoenix in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Vancort helps get voting information to forward operating bases, and helps service members and private contractors request absentee ballots. It’s not an easy task, she says, “dealing with 50 different states and every one is different.”

Nonetheless, with interest so high in this presidential election, even the top brass are sending signals about soldiers taking part.

“I got an e-mail from the chief of staff for the Army reminding me that part of my job is to make sure U.S. citizens have the right to vote,” said Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, commander of U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan.
   
On the Net:
      The Federal Voting Assistance Program     

The Overseas Voting Foundation