New Haven Independent

Jack Mordente, director of Veterans Affairs at Southern, and president of the National Association of Veterans Program Administrators, began a press conference Monday at Southern Connecticut State University this way:

“We are here today to talk about the fact that war-deployed National Guard and Reservists are being told that if they leave the Guard and Reserve they lose their GI Bill. It is not true. But before we continue, I would like to ask all the veterans in the audience to please stand and be recognized.”

And many did. They were in the audience because they had come to support Mordente — even some who knew him as far back as the 1970s. His proud daughter was there too, with her two sons.

Mordente is the kind of guy you’d want in your corner, whether in a foxhole or slogging through the Pentagon bureaucracy. Every person who spoke on Monday made that clear, including John Daluz (pictured above with Mordente), a young veteran who was told he was not eligible for benefits to attend Southern but for whom Mordente went to bat until Daluz was awarded more than $6,000, most of it retroactively. Daluz will be graduating next month.

Mordente learned last year that the Department of Defense was telling Guard and Reservists returning from Iraq and Afghanistan that if they retired from the military (left active drill status) they wouldn’t get these education benefits. Meanwhile, the Veterans Administration was awarding the benefits to those who applied — $300 a month for every month served, plus four months. At the top levels, the VA and DoD just had different interpretations. There are almost 11,000 vets in Connecticut who could be eligible for the payment.

Earlier this year, Mordente learned that the DoD had accepted the VA’s interpretation, but the Pentagon still was not informing the vets themselves.

Hours after the press conference, the DoD said it would start informing vets after all. For more details on that, check this story by Randall Beach in the Register, which first wrote about this issue.

Connecticut Attorney General Dick Blumenthal (pictured), a former Marine reservist himself, called the military’s previous actions on this question “unconscionable.” He said the DoD must inform the reservists of their rights and restore the rights of reservists whose eligibility has lapsed due to the passage of time. Click here for more.

U.S. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro said it’s up to the Pentagon to do the right thing. Click here to listen.

She said she wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates about correcting this situation, but so far has not received a response. DeLauro (pictured) is supporting the Total Force GI Bill, which she said, “would eliminate any confusion by combining all reserve and active duty programs, including education benefits under the direction of the Veterans Administration.” She added, “To ensure veterans have the support they need, the new majority in Congress passed a 2008 Budget that increases resources for veterans’ health care and services by 14 percent.”

Mordente pointed out that the Pentagon gets “a pot of money” to administer all its programs, so any money that goes to veterans means less money for recruitment and retention of soldiers and marines to fight in the country’s current wars. He ended with a brief history lesson on how veterans in the U.S. “have always had to fight for their benefits.” Click here to listen. He concluded, “In my opinion, our government always has the money for the bullets and the bombs, but when it’s time for the bandages and the [books], they do whatever they can to limit their liability.”

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