hi and welcome to the veterans legal lowdown uh my name is bethany cook and with me is kayla dinofrio
we're both accredited claims agent at chisholm chisholm and kilpatrick and on this episode
we're going to go over some va benefits that are available to national guard and reserve members
to get us started i'm going to talk about qualifying service for va benefits
so to be eligible for certain va benefits national guard and reserve members have to receive
first of all discharges that are other than dishonorable unfortunately if you
do receive a dishonorable discharge then you would not qualify for most benefits
some va national guard and reserve member benefits also require a certain amount of active service
for example you might be required to have a certain amount of full-time active duty
in the armed forces uh which includes unit deployment and travel to and from such duty
but unfortunately it does not include uh in active duty for training
you could also have a certain amount of full-time national guard duty which would be
duty that you perform that makes you entitled to receive pay from the federal government
so an example of this would be if you're called up to respond to a national emergency
or duties as a member of the active duty reserve
it's a little bit different if you're a traditional national guard or reserve member
as they do typically only serve on active duty one weekend per month in two weeks per year however
they can become eligible for certain va benefits by fulfilling a service commitment as well
for example to be eligible for va disability compensation
members have to have a disability that resulted from an injury or disease that was incurred or
aggravated in the line of duty during either active duty or active duty for training
if you have a disability that occurred during inactive duty for training um the requirements
for disability compensation are different um it's a little bit more stringent for
disability compensation for disability occurring during inactive duty training
the disability has to have resulted from an injury heart attack or a stroke specifically
and one last thing to keep in mind it's unfortunately important to uh know that state
active duty for example when a state governor activates national guard members in response to
a local disaster that does not qualify as active service for the purposes of receiving va national
guard and reserve member benefits and the first benefit that we're going to be talking about
today is disability compensation this disability compensation is a tax-free monthly benefit that's
awarded to veterans with a 10 disability rating or higher va will pay monthly benefits to reservists
or national guard members for disabilities from disease or injury incurred or aggravated during
active duty and inactive duty for training or for disabilities from injury incurred or
aggravated during active duty for training during inactive duty for training excuse me disabilities
are evaluated based on the serverity using va's schedule for rating disabilities and then given
a rating ranging between zero and one hundred percent the more severe the disability rating
is the higher the disability rating va will assign it um and the higher ratings are also associated
with a higher monthly monetary value um for more information on how va ratings work i recommend
checking out our cck live video um where we go into a lot more detail about how va signs ratings
and then how they come up with their combined rating um for your overall total disability rating
another benefit that's available is va pension va pension is a tax-free benefit to veterans with
limited income and net worth who serve during during a wartime period generally veterans must
have 90 days or 24 months of active duty depending on when they served to qualify
for more information about the eligibility requirements va's website has a full list
of the length of duty and the time of duty as well as the
income and net worth requirements that you would need to show to be eligible for va pension
yeah and another great benefit are va home loans so va home loans are mortgages that
are guaranteed by the federal government that can help eligible service members and veterans
buy a home or even adapt one to their needs
there are certain criteria that have to be met by national guard and reserve members to qualify
for a va home loan for example they can have six years of service in the selected reserve
and either receive an honorable discharge or be put on the retired list or if they were
transferred to the standby reserve or an element of the ready reserve other than the selected
reserve um after receiving a discharge other than uh characterized as honorable sorry they can also
qualify if they continue to serve in the selected reserves for a period longer than six years
or lastly if they were discharged or released from active duty for a service connected disability
they can also potentially qualify and there will be other requirements that have to be met for
the home loan to be granted but these are the the basic requirements to meet before applying
and recently uh the 2021 national defense authorization act made a specific provision
of for national guard members as of 2021 due to this act national guard members service
are increasingly eligible to receive a va home loan so where previously a national guard member
would need to have served for 90 consecutive days on active duty the new legislation makes
it so that guard and reserve members deployed under title 32 which means federally funded but
state-controlled deployment who have at least 90 days of service with 30 days of those days being
consecutive eligible for the home loan program so the new requirement is less stringent as well
you still have to have 90 days of service only 30 of those days have to be consecutive
va does offer some health benefits to national guard and reserve members as well eligibility for
va healthcare based on title 32 which bethany just described um depends on the veteran's disability
being incurred or aggravated during their title 32 service otherwise va healthcare benefit
eligibility will depend on factors such as income national guard or reserve members who served
after november 11th 1998 such as active duty and operation enduring freedom operation iraqi freedom
or operation desert operation new dawn can receive enhanced eligibility to va healthcare benefits as
long as they enroll within five years of the date of their discharge or their release from service
in addition to the health benefits there's also some education benefits that might be available
for national guard and reserve members there are different eligibility requirements
and different benefits that are offered through these different education programs
um the first one we're going to talk about is the post gi the post 911 gi bill
this benefit offers 36 up to 36 months of education benefits to those who are eligible
for programs that range from flight training to undergraduate programs to
graduate degrees according to va national guard or reserve members must have received an honorable
discharge from active duty for service connected disability after serving at least 30 continuous
days after september 10 2001 or have at least 90 cumulative days of service of active duty
service including active duty service supporting named contingency operations under title 10.
full-time national guard duty under title 32 for the purpose of organizing administering recruiting
instructing or training or have full-time national guard duty in which you were authorized by the
secretary of defense or the president to respond to a national emergency again under title 32.
the other health education benefit that we're going to talk about
today is the montgomery gi selected montgomery gi bill selected reserve
this benefit offers national guard and reserve members educational benefits up
to eleven thousand dollars to help with costs of various education and training programs
benefits under the montgomery gi bill selected reserve and for eligible members on the day that
they leave the selective reserve service there are certain eligibility requirements for this benefit
all of which must be met those those requirements include that the applicant must have a six-year
obligation to serve in the selected reserves they have to have completed initial active
duty for training they have to serve in a drilling unit and remain in good standing
and they have to have a high school a high school diploma or the equivalent such as a ged
there are also life insurance programs that are available to national guard and reserve members
so these programs can be really beneficial as they can provide more financial security
and the lower monthly premiums to eligible service members and veterans
service members are automatically insured under full-time service members group life insurance
if they are either a member of the ready reserve or national guard who is scheduled
to perform at least 12 periods of inactive training per year or if their service member
who volunteers for a mobilization category in the individual ready reserve if you don't meet those
requirements part-time coverage is also available to national guard and reserve members who perform
duty at specific times and other insurance plans available to national guard and reserve members
include include the veterans group life insurance family service members group life insurance sgli
traumatic injury protection as well as service disabled veterans insurance and veterans mortgage
life insurance eligibility criteria for all of these programs can be found on va's website and
the last benefit we're going to talk about today is the veteran readiness and employment program or
the vr e program this program provides education and training services including vocational
counseling and job search assistance to national guard and reserve members with service-connected
disabilities you may be eligible for assistance in preparing for obtaining and maintaining
suitable employment through the vr and a if you are a veteran with a service-connected disability
rated at 20 or more or you're hospitalized or receiving outpatient medical care services
or treatment for a service-connected disability pending discharge from active duty
if you're severely ill or injured or have been referred to a military physical evaluation board
or are participating in the dod va integrated disability evaluation systems process or you're
a veteran with a service connected disability rated at at least 10 percent and your vocational
rehabilitation counselor determines that you need rehabilitation because of a serious employment
handicap you may also be you may also qualify for career counseling if you were recently separated
from the military or using the va education benefits that we talked about a little bit earlier
thank you kayla uh that concludes our summary of benefits available to national guard and
reserve members for more information on any of these benefits you can check out va's website
and thank you for tuning in and subscribe to our podcast for future content
you