Joe Manchin: “I rise today to urge my colleagues to support an amendment to H.R. 933 requiring the military services to resume their…”

“I rise today to urge my colleagues to support an amendment to H.R. 933 requiring the military services to resume their tuition assistance programs, which are so vital to our military's professional and educational development. On March 5, 2013, the Department of Defense Comptroller Robert Hale sent a letter to the services to provide ``additional guidance for handling budgetary uncertainty in fiscal year 2013.'' In his letter, Secretary Hale said that ``all services should consider significant reductions in funding new tuition assistance applications.'' Three days later, on March 8, the Army suspended tuition assistance for all its soldiers--Guard and Reserve--and as a result, more than one million Army soldiers immediately lost this important education benefit. There was not a single exception, not one, not even for troops wounded in combat. The Air Force, Coast Guard, and Marines also suspended their tuition assistance programs. This matter concerns me greatly, and I hope it does my colleagues as well. I understand the difficult fiscal decisions facing our military as a result of the sequester, but I object to the way they are handling tuition assistance with what amounts to blunt force policy making. I want to reexamine the exact wording of Secretary Hale's letter.…”