I reached the point a while back where I automatically distrust articles like this one, and suspect there’s something we’re not being told. But if this report is accurate, it’s a total disgrace, and needs to be fixed, fast: National Guard Troops Denied Benefits After Longest Deployment Of Iraq War.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN (NBC) — When they came home from Iraq, 2,600 members of the Minnesota National Guard had been deployed longer than any other ground combat unit. The tour lasted 22 months and had been extended as part of President Bush’s surge.

1st Lt. Jon Anderson said he never expected to come home to this: A government refusing to pay education benefits he says he should have earned under the GI bill.

“It’s pretty much a slap in the face,” Anderson said. “I think it was a scheme to save money, personally. I think it was a leadership failure by the senior Washington leadership… once again failing the soldiers.”

Anderson’s orders, and the orders of 1,161 other Minnesota guard members, were written for 729 days. Had they been written for 730 days, just one day more, the soldiers would receive those benefits to pay for school.

“Which would be allowing the soldiers an extra $500 to $800 a month,” Anderson said. That money would help him pay for his master’s degree in public administration. It would help Anderson’s fellow platoon leader, John Hobot, pay for a degree in law enforcement.

“I would assume, and I would hope, that when I get back from a deployment of 22 months, my senior leadership in Washington, the leadership that extended us in the first place, would take care of us once we got home,” Hobot said.

Both Hobot and Anderson believe the Pentagon deliberately wrote orders for 729 days instead of 730. Now, six of Minnesota’s members of the House of Representatives have asked the Secretary of the Army to look into it — So have Senators Amy Klobuchar and Norm Coleman.

UPDATE at 10/6/07 1:10:14 pm:

It looks like it is being fixed; here’s the latest news: U.S. Army secretary works to fix GI Bill for Minnesotans.

Members of the Minnesota congressional delegation have been working with the Minnesota National Guard to correct what they consider an inequity.

The state’s U.S. senators, Norm Coleman and Amy Klobuchar, announced Monday they had received word from Army Secretary Pete Geren that he was attempting to fix the problem.

“Many of these soldiers have put their education on hold in order to serve our nation, and awarding these benefits is the least we can do for them when they return,” Coleman said.

Geren told the senators he was recommending that the Army Board of Corrections, which has the authority to award the benefits, expedite the review process so the soldiers could get their benefits in time to enroll for spring semester. Usually, each soldier would each have to file a personal appeal, but Geren requested the Army review them as one group.