McCain Faces Looming Showdown Over 21st Century GI Bill

(Update: Dems Shoot Down McCain’s Alternative GI Bill

Senate Democrats held off a Republican ambush to advance its own version of a new GI Bill Wednesday, shooting the amendment down by a 55-42 vote.)

During an election year, there is no such thing as a sure thing in congressional politics. The latest uncertainty surrounds Sen. Jim Webb’s 21st Century GI Bill, which met a temporary setback in the House last week when the legislation, attached to the Iraq War funding bill, was pulled from the floor after members of the Blue Dog Democrats threatened a revolt.

Meanwhile, the plot thickens in the Senate after a dose of presidential politics was thrown into the chamber pot, pitting decorated Vietnam War veterans against each other.

In a bipartisan effort, combat Vietnam veterans Sens. Jim Webb, D-Va., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., have vowed to improve veterans’ education benefits by introducing a bill, the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008 (S. 22), in the Senate that would substantially increase the educational benefits available to servicemembers who have served since Sept. 11, 2001.

At first, fellow combat veteran and prisoner of war Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, remained silent on whether he would support his colleague’s bill, contending he needed more time to study the bill.

The day after a nonpartisan veterans’ advocacy group, Vote Vets, delivered a petition signed by 30,000 veterans to McCain’ Senate office, McCain broke his silence and followed the Pentagon’s lead, which contends the new GI Bill is too generous and will encourage soldiers to leave military service and pursue a college education.

"We are working on proposals of our own — I'm a consistent supporter of educational benefits for the men and women of the military," McCain told ABC News. "I want to make sure that we have incentives for people to remain in the military as well as for people to join the military.”

The latter rationale prompted Wesley K. Clark, the former supreme commander of NATO, and Jon Stoltz, an Iraq war veteran and chairman of VoteVets.org, to pen an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times.

The White House has voiced concern on the bill, arguing that if returning troops are offered a good education, they will choose college over extending their service. This is as offensive as it is absurd.

First, it is morally reprehensible to fix the system so that civilian life is unappealing to service members, in an attempt to force them to re-up. Education assistance is not a handout, it is a sacred promise that we have made for generations in return for service.

Second, falling military recruitment numbers are just as serious as retention problems. To send the message that this nation will not help you make the most of your life will dissuade a large number of our best and brightest from choosing military service over other career options.

Webb downplayed the political implications of the bill and made a plea for McCain to join the other 54 senators, including his Democratic colleagues Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York, who have already signed on to the new GI Bill.

"John McCain needs to be on this bill," Webb said in a statement to The Huffington Post. "I have said to him several times that this is not a political issue -- this is about providing a fair, deserved benefit to our troops. Based on his own military history and how strongly he speaks about the positive contributions of the people who have served, I hope that he will get on board and support this new GI bill."

As promised, McCain joined Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Richard Burr, R-N.C., in unveiling an alternative to the Webb/Hagel bill, the Enhancement of Recruitment, Retention, and Readjustment through Education Act.

“We have an obligation to provide unwavering support to our nation’s veterans, and that is precisely what this legislation does,” McCain said in a statement. “Men and women who serve their country in uniform deserve the best education benefits we are able to give them. That is why I am pleased to join with Senators Graham and Burr to announce legislation that significantly enhances the Montgomery GI bill and promotes recruitment and retention which is critical to an All Volunteer Military.”

On the campaign trail Tuesday in Charleston, W.Va., Obama took issue with McCain’s unwillingness to support Webb’s bill.

"John McCain is one of the few senators of either party who oppose this bill because he thinks it's too generous," Obama said. "I could not disagree with him more. At a time when the skyrocketing cost of tuition is pricing thousands of Americans out of a college education, we should be doing everything we can to give the men and women who have risked their lives for this country the chance to pursue their American Dream."

McCain’s campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly fired back in a statement, calling it "absurd" for Obama to question McCain’s commitment to America’s veterans "when Obama himself voted against funding our nation’s veterans, and troops in the field, during a time of war."

On the Iowa front, Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin has signed on to Webb’s bill, namely because it includes more benefits, whereas McCain’s alternative bill imposes benefit limitations. “The GI bill being led in a major bipartisan fashion by Senators Webb and Warner truly supports our service members with the resources they need to improve and complete their education,” Harkin said in a statement to the Iowa Independent. “Other bills seem to set unnecessary benefit ceilings even though we have asked our troops to go above and beyond the call of duty. We should not limit the progress our returning soldiers can make.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has yet to decide upon either of the proposed bills. “Senator Grassley supports improving the GI bill, but has not committed to supporting any particular bill at this time,” Beth Pellett-Levine, Grassley’s press secretary, told the Iowa Independent. “He's looking forward to studying the bill recently put forward by Senators Graham, Burr and McCain as well as the Webb/Warner bill.”

Old vs. New GI Bill: What’s at stake for veterans?

The original GI Bill was signed into law in 1944 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to help ensure World War II veterans would be able to afford an education. Experts have argued that the GI Bill “reinvented America” after a half-decade of war. A 1988 Congressional study showed that every dollar spent on educational benefits under the original GI Bill added seven dollars to the national economy in terms of productivity, consumer spending, and tax revenue.

Fast forward 64 years to the present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have produced over 1.5 million veterans. The current educational benefits offered to veterans, when adjusted for inflation and the rise in tuition and cost of living, are far lower than the original GI Bill. Today, after paying a nonrefundable $1,200 contribution from their first year’s military paychecks, troops receive an estimated $1,101 per academic month for up to 36 months, or four years of college.

Webb’s version of the new GI Bill will waive the $1,200 buy-in component, extend time to use benefits from 10 to 15 years, and will change the benefit proposal to pay for any public university and most private colleges -- capping benefits at the rate of the most expensive public university in the state. Moreover, the bill will add $1,000 a year for books and supplies and a stipend to cover cost-of-living expenses (based on DoD’s Basic Housing Allowance rate for E-5 w/dependent and zip code of the college/university).

Veterans attending a public university or select private college in Iowa will receive up to $5,935 based on the tuition cap at the most expensive public university, the University of Iowa. After adding in the living allowance and the $1,000 for books and supplies, veterans will receive an average yearly stipend of $7,674. Ironically, this is $2,226 less than veterans receive through the current GI Bill, but Iowa has the fourth lowest in-state tuition rate, and the intent of the new GI Bill is to provide certainty to veterans transitioning from the military to college, so they don’t have to worry about rising tuition costs outpacing their education benefits.

Another problem with the current GI Bill has to do with structural and bureaucratic delays, which have discouraged some veterans from using their benefits. National Guardsmen and Reservists, including those who have served multiple combat tours, typically receive only a fraction of their GI Bill benefits. Moreover, 30 percent of troops who pay the nonrefundable $1,200 contribution do not end up using the GI Bill at all. These veterans have paid the government $230 million, but received nothing in return.

On the other hand, Keith Pedigo, the Veterans Affairs associate deputy undersecretary for policy and program management, issued a warning last week that meeting an Aug. 1, 2009, effective date for the benefits increases in the new GI bill would be extremely difficult, because the proposal calls for the maximum benefit to be different in each state, payments would have to be processed manually, rather than automatically, Pedigo said.

“VA does not now have a payment system or the appropriate number of trained personnel to administer the program,” Pedigo said in a statement, predicting it would take two years to develop a payment system to provide the new benefits.

Pedigo also warned of fundamental unfairness in a proposed housing allowance that would be based on where a school is located, rather than where a student lives, which could encourage veterans to enroll in online learning programs offered by schools in high-cost areas.

Despite President George W. Bush’s threat to veto the new GI Bill in its current form, both the House and Senate expect to vote on the legislation before the summer recess.

Harkin Vows to Break VA’s Silence on Veterans’ Suicide Crisis

In light of the adage “Truth is the first casualty of war,” the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is under fire for allegedly covering up the suicide crisis among our nation’s veterans in November.

The veterans’ rights group, Veterans for Common Sense, filed a class-action suit against the VA, and a federal court in San Francisco began hearing the case last Monday. The case, backed by internal e-mails written by Dr. Ira Katz, the VA’s head of mental health, and procured by CBS News, alleges that the VA is deliberately concealing the risk of suicide among veterans.

“The system is in crisis and unfortunately the VA is in denial,” veterans' rights attorney Gordon Erspamer told CBS last Monday.

Congress took up the issue Thursday, when U.S. Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., introduced a bill, the Veterans Suicide Study Act, which would require the VA to track veterans’ suicide rates annually and report its findings to Congress. Moreover, the bill would require the VA to report to Congress within 180 days the number of veterans who have died by suicide since Jan. 1, 1997.

“We are looking at a real crisis among our veterans and it is high time the VA recognizes it,” Harkin said in a statement. “Tracking the number of suicides among our veterans will help us to better understand the true depths of this crisis so we may ensure we are doing everything we can to address their mental health needs. It is shameful to lose those who have served our country to suicide simply because they do not have the support they need.”

Katz told CBS in November that “there is no epidemic in suicide in VA,” but changed his story a few months ago. In a letter written to his top media adviser, Katz wrote: "Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans we see in our medical facilities."

However, an e-mail labeled “Not for the CBS News Interview Request” that was sent in November indicates Katz may have been trying to conceal the actual numbers.

The e-mail drew the ire of Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., who chairs the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, last week. "This is disgraceful. This is a crime against our nation, our nation's veterans," Filner told CBS News. "They do not want to come to grips with the reality, with the truth."

In an e-mail late Monday to CBS News, Katz wrote that the reason the numbers were not released was due to questions about the consistency and reliability of the findings -- and that there was no public cover-up involved.

Nonetheless, Katz has drawn attention from congressional members, some of whom are calling for Katz to step down, including members of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee: Sens. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii and Patty Murray of Washington.

"Dr. Katz's irresponsible actions have been a disservice to our veterans, and it is time for him to go," Murray told the Washington Post. "The No. 1 priority of the VA should be caring for our veterans, not covering up the truth."

Moreover, the Washington Post reported that Akaka, the committee's chairman, said in a letter to the VA that Katz's "personal conduct and professional judgment" had been called into question by his response to veteran suicides. Veterans, and the VA itself, "would be best served by his immediate resignation," Akaka said.

In the meantime, Feingold, the bill’s coauthor, is concerned about the mental health of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. “The fact that the VA has no real data on the suicide rate among veterans shows how much needs to be done to address the mental health needs of veterans,” Feingold said in a statement. “With ongoing reports showing that service members are returning from combat with alarming rates of mental health problems, understanding and responding to these problems is critical to preventing deaths.”

The Veterans Suicide Study Act is a companion to the Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act introduced in the House by Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, and pushed through the Senate by Harkin, despite a procedural move by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., that temporarily stalled the bill.

Similar to the bill introduced last week, a component of the suicide prevention legislation was to put more pressure on the VA and hold it more accountable by implementing mandates and deadlines that would implement suicide-prevention programs in a timely fashion and expedite the process for returning veterans.

Boswell’s bill was designed to help address post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among veterans by requiring mental health training for Veterans Affairs staff; a suicide prevention counselor at each VA medical facility; and mental-health screening and treatment for veterans who receive VA care. It also supports outreach and education for veterans and their families, peer support counseling and research into suicide prevention.

1 in 5 current vets suffer, study shows

Congressional pressure on the VA was prompted, in part, by a RAND Corporation study released April 17. The study indicates that nearly 20 percent of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan -- 300,000 in all -- report symptoms of PTSD or major depression, yet only slightly more than half have sought treatment.

The RAND study also found that many service members said they do not seek treatment for psychological illnesses because they fear it will harm their careers. But even among those who do seek help for PTSD or major depression, only about half receive treatment that researchers consider "minimally adequate" for their illnesses.

In the first analysis of its kind, researchers estimate that PTSD and depression among returning service members will cost the nation as much as $6.2 billion in the two years following deployment — an amount that includes both direct medical care and costs for lost productivity and suicide. Investing in more high-quality treatment could save close to $2 billion within two years by substantially reducing those indirect costs, the 500-page study concludes.

"There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan," Terri Tanielian, the project's co-leader and a researcher at RAND, said in a statement. "Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation. Unfortunately, we found there are many barriers preventing them from getting the high-quality treatment they need."

Service members report many reasons for not seeking treatment. Many are worried about the side effects of medication or believe that family and friends can provide more help than a mental health professional. Even more reported that they worried seeking care might damage their career or cause their peers to lose confidence in their abilities.

"We need to remove the institutional cultural barriers that discourage soldiers from seeking care," Tanielian said. "Just because someone is getting mental health care does not mean that they are not able to do their job. Seeking mental health treatment should be seen as a sign of strength and interest in getting better, not a weakness. People need to get help as early as possible, not only once their symptoms become severe and disabling."

Researchers concluded that a major national effort is needed to expand and improve the capacity of the mental health system to provide effective care to service members and veterans. The effort must include the military, veteran and civilian health care systems, and should focus on training more providers to use high-quality, evidence-based treatment methods and encouraging service members and veterans to seek needed care.

Since October 2001, about 1.6 million U.S. troops have deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with many exposed to prolonged periods of combat-related stress or traumatic events. Early evidence suggests that the psychological toll of the deployments may be disproportionately high compared with physical injuries.

Another side effect of treating PTSD is the costs associated with diagnosis and treatment. The RAND study estimates the societal costs of PTSD and major depression for two years after deployment range from about $6,000 to more than $25,000 per case. Depending whether the economic cost of suicide is included, the RAND study estimates the total society costs of the conditions for two years range from $4 billion to $6.2 billion.

Grassley Keeps Dogging White House to Hire Vets

During his 27-year tenure in Washington, D.C., Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has been a tireless advocate and watchdog when it comes to accountability. Whether protecting whistle-blowers or probing televangelists to divulge their tax records, the ranking Republican of the Senate Finance Committee has no reservations about sticking his nose into other people's business, and now he’s set his sights on the White House, urging President George W. Bush to “ramp up his administration’s efforts” in hiring recent combat veterans for federal jobs.

Grassley first assumed the role of headhunter for veterans Feb. 27, when he sent a letter urging the president to establish a goal that 10 percent of new hires in all federal departments and agencies be veterans.

“You proposed in your State of the Union Address to extend federal veterans preference in hiring to the spouses of service members, which is one piece of what needs to be done to lessen the strain on military families that have sacrificed so much for this country,” Grassley wrote. “However, it is essential that federal departments and agencies do a better job of using the authorities given to them by Congress by proactively seeking out and recruiting veterans, particularly those who have served recently in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

To make his case, Grassley cited the most recent data published in fiscal year 2006 by the Office of Personnel Management, which found a wide range of discrepancies among federal departments and agencies. The Air Force led the pack with 46.4 percent of its personnel made up of veterans, while the Federal Trade Commission finished last with 1.6 percent.

“While some disparity is to be expected, the wide variety suggests that some departments and agencies have a much more successful approach to recruiting and hiring veterans,” Grassley wrote.

Grassley asked for and received a written response by April 1 from the Bush administration.

In an attempt to assuage Grassley’s concerns, Karl Zinsmeister, assistant to the president for domestic policy, wrote that the president "wholeheartedly agrees” with Grassley, in that “our nation owes a special debt of gratitude to those who have put themselves in harm’s way on its behalf, and to their families.”

“His State of the Union Address highlighted the need for Federal government hiring preferences to be extended to spouses as well as veterans,” Zinsmeister wrote. “This simple step will help alleviate the lower-than-average employment rates for military spouses.”

Zinsmeister's letter described the administration’s outreach efforts to veterans, namely the Department of Veterans and the Veterans Affairs Nation Veterans Employment Program: “…These multiple efforts have yielded significant results: the percentage of veterans employed in the Federal non-Postal workforce currently 25 percent – well above a 10 percent goal.”

Zinsmeister assured Grassley that the Bush administration is “continuing to implement the recommendations of the Ineragency Task Force on Returning Global War on Terror Heroes, which will likely continue the great success our veterans have had in seeking employment in the Federal government.”

However, Zinsmeister’s response did not assuage the concerns of Grassley, who responded to Bush in a letter Wednesday. “The response lacked much substance and the central request of my letter remains unaddressed.” Grassley wrote. “I am aware of the current figures from the OPM on the employment of veterans in the federal government overall. However, the overall figures hide a wide disparity between various departments and agencies in terms of their success in recruiting and hiring veterans.”

Grassley reiterated his call for a commitment to establish a minimum goal that 10 percent of new hires in all federal departments and agencies be veterans. “More than one-third of federal departments are not currently meeting that goal, according to the most recent data from OPM, and well over half of independent agencies fall short,” Grassley wrote.

Grassley, citing a report, voiced a concern that 18 percent of recent returning combat veterans are unemployed.

Moreover, he criticized Zinmeister’s initial response to his concerns. “I am disappointed that your staff’s response to my previous letter attempted to change the subject and ignore my request,” Grassley wrote. “I ask that you now provide me with a clear response on whether or not you will make such a commitment.”

Grassley end his letter with a new deadline: “As there has already been ample time to consider these issues, I look forward to your reply no later than April 11, 2008.”

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Zirkelbach Leading Charge for Iowa’s Veterans and Citizen Soldiers

The Iowa House Veterans Affairs Committee’s new chair, Ray Zirkelbach, D-Monticello, is poised to lead the fight for veterans this session, vowing to pave the way for a smoother transition for Iowa’s growing population of citizen soldiers. “We’re dealing with a whole new generation of veterans and these are citizen soldiers,” Zirkelbach told the Iowa Independent during an interview. “These are National Guardsmen and reserves' soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and have to transition back into their civilian lives. We don’t have an active-duty base in Iowa, so it’s going to be huge transition. We have a lot of homegrown veterans, a number of which are from rural areas.”

Although Iowa is faced with a growing influx of citizen soldiers from recent wars, Zirkelbach does not want veterans from past wars such as Korea and Vietnam to be forgotten. “They were kind of let down by our government in the past and now it’s my generation, the Iraq war veterans, who need to help get them up to speed,” Zirkelbach said.

Having recently returned from his second deployment to Iraq last year with the Iowa National Guard’s 133rd Infantry Battalion, Zirkelbach is no stranger to leading the fight. During his last tour in Iraq, Zirkelbach was a team leader with his infantry unit. His squad was responsible for providing convoy security in al-Anbar Province, where they helped bring in about one-third of the goods from Jordan.

While deployed to Iraq, Zirkelbach not only missed the birth of his first child, Claire, but the last two legislative sessions of the Iowa House. “The hardest part of my most recent deployment to Iraq was missing my family,” Zirkelbach said. “I missed the birth of my daughter and the first 16 months of her life. My wife and I found out right before we were being deployed that she was pregnant, so I missed the whole pregnancy, the birth and Claire’s first birthday.”

Missing the last two sessions also put a mental strain on Zirkelback, who said that it was hard not being able to actively serve and represent his constituents while he was deployed. “I told people back home that if you want somebody else in there, they should do so,” Zirkelbach said. “But they did nominate me and sent me back into office, which I am grateful for.” In his absence, the Eastern Iowa Democratic delegation and Sen. Tom Hancock, D-Dubuque, helped take care of Zirkelbach’s constituents’ concerns.

House Speaker Patrick Murphy, D-Dubuque, appointed Zirkelbach chair of the Veterans Affairs Committee during the legislative-session interim. “Murphy wanted me there as ranking member when the Democrats were in the minority and now that we are in the majority, he appointed me chair,” Zirkelbach said.

Although he didn’t benefit from the hands-on political experience during the last two sessions, Zirkelbach’s experiences in Iraq did give him a new perspective on how to approach his legislative duties. “I can sit back more and analyze things more deeply than I did during my first year in the House,” Zirkelbach said. “Iraq was an eye-opening experience, and I learned to appreciate things that you can only learn to appreciate while serving in a third-world country. It broadened my perspective on a lot of things.”

That said, Zirkelbach said he wants to set the tone this session by focusing on more issues of substance. “It seemed like a lot of the veterans' issues pushed since 9/11 have been feel-good goals,” Zirkelbach said. “As chair I want to focus more on substance issues that will address problems facing veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, in particular mental-heath care and medical care – especially accessibility for veterans living in rural areas.” To address this, Zirkelbach introduced House File 2033, which calls for full mental-health parity for veterans and requires employers and insurance providers to cover veterans’ mental-health care and substance abuse as part of their health care.

Zirkelbach noted that compared with the other states, Iowa has consistently ranked close to the bottom when it comes to veterans' benefits. “Knowing how the state government works, we know that these changes won’t happen overnight, but we will focus on the immediacy of veterans’ issues by targeting some of the more important problems facing Iowa’s veterans,” Zirkelbach said.

Moreover, the Veterans Affair Committee faces the fiscal challenge of vying for funding for any existing and new veterans' programs. There have been some concerns in the veterans’ community that Gov. Chet Culver’s budget proposal doesn’t allocate enough funding for veterans, other than the money designated for the Marshalltown Veterans Home.

Zirkelbach remains optimistic about the budget and says veterans’ advocates need to be patient and take a look at the big picture. “Most of the funding for veterans-related bills comes out of other appropriation subcommittee’s budgets,” Zirkelbach said. “That’s another issue in itself. I would like to see the Veterans Affairs Committee have its own appropriations subcommittee, so we have more control on what we fund and how much we can fund on veterans’ programs.

Adding to the state’s fiscal constraints, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have shifted a great deal of the financial burden on the states, which increasingly, have to pick up the financial tab for veterans' programs in their respective states. “The federal government has been dumping on states and using and abusing us. There’s a lot of misleading going on,” Zirkelbach said.

“It’s clear that the president and the people in control did not foresee the future problems facing our citizen soldiers. Members in our unit had to find out the hard way upon their return from Iraq. It’s never been such a mess, and you would think that the federal government would treat us in a better manner.”

Originally posted on "Iowa Independent"

Lawmakers One Step Closer to Protecting Returning Soldiers’ Jobs

(Update: The House passed House File 2065 this morning. There were no votes against the bill and it now heads to the Senate. Employers who fail to follow the law face possible simple misdemeanor charges with up to 30 days in jail and fines up to $625. Under the proposed changes to the law, a county attorney could request the Iowa Attorney General follow through with prosecution. That change would help expedite soldiers’ claims and help ensure swifter justice ensure, lawmakers said.)

Iowa’s soldiers may no longer have to worry about whether they will have a job when returning from active-duty deployment. A measure, House File 2065, which protecting returning Iowa’s National Guard and reserve soldier’s jobs passed its first hurdle.The House Veterans Affairs Committee approved the bipartisan initiative 15-0 Wednesday. The plan will ensure that soldiers called to active duty can return to their jobs after service at the same pay and status level.

"Men and women called to active duty deserve our support,” McKinley Bailey, D-Webster City, the lead sponsor of the bill said in a statement. “After serving our country and being separated from their families, the least we can do is ensure an easy transition back to civilian life, which includes going back to their job at the same pay and status level.”

The legislation was first proposed at a news conference in Des Moines back in October by Bailey and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines.

While the federal law, USERRA (Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act), requires employers to hold a position for a returning soldier, proponents of the new mesure contend that if an employer is not fully compliant with the law, a soldier’s only recourse is to file a lawsuit that can take years to resolve."It puts some more teeth into it," McCarthy said in an October statement. "It's a more streamlined process, a process that's closer to home."

House Veterans Affairs Committee Chair Ray Zirkelbach, D-Monticello, echoed McCarthy’s response. “The bill will give attorneys at the county level more power to go after and prosecute employers who are not compliant with USERRA in a more timely manner,” Zirkelbach told the Iowa Independent. Zirkelbach is optimistic about the bill, the first one introduced in the 2008 session, and thinks it has a good chance of passing in the House by the end of the week.

Employers, however, are no longer held liable if the position or business itself was discontinued during the time of the employee’s deployment. The proposal in Iowa would create possible criminal charges for violators and make the appeals process less cumbersome. It also would require employers to reimburse military members for pay lost during the time their jobs were denied to them.

To help illustrate the federal law’s shortcomings, Capt. Pam Reynolds, a physical therapist from Ames who served a 15-month deployment beginning in 2006, accompanied the lawmakers at the October press conference. Upon returning from her service, Reynolds was told she could apply for a physical therapist position at Green Hills Retirement Community in Ames, a similar job but with lower pay."Most of us coming back are just wanting to get into the community," Reynolds told the Des Moines Register in October. "We definitely don't want to be where I'm standing right now. We just want back into our normal routine. While many veterans realize that federal law protects their jobs, the understanding is vague and many don't know how to react, Reynolds said. "We know there's a law out there," she said. "We don't know what it means."

Often times, employer’s non-compliance with USERRA is not intentional, rather, employers didn’t know about their obligations under the law. To help remedy this, the Department of Defense (DoD) created the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR), which helps educate soldiers and employers about the federal law. “We’re not litigators. We are just here to help enhance communication between employer and employee to help resolve any conflicts,” ESGR State Chair Barry Spears told the Iowa Independent in October. “We’ve had a good track record in the two-and-a-half years I’ve been here, and we have not had a problem go unresolved.”

Most of the problems that do arise are namely because of misunderstandings, misinterpretation, or because of ignorance on behalf of either the employer or the employee said Spears. Asked whether Iowa needed a law that would enforce the current federal regulations, Spears said that anything that can be done to help support these civilian members is important. “That’s why we should work hard to take care of them, so they don’t have to worry about these types of problems when they return from deployment,” Spears said.

Bailey Introduces Bill to Protect Veterans Employment