Well, my fellow veterans of NIU, its official–the government failed to do its job, so it decided that one of the first solutions to that problem is screwing over the men and women who serve our country. That’s right: Let’s mess with our servicemen and women’s benefits; but hey, we can still retire after four years of incompetence and collect our abnormally large salaries without a care in the world.

According to The Washington Post, the Army, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard have suspended their Tuition Assistance (TA) programs (the Navy’s decision is currently pending) for all active duty as well as reserve and guard units. This is going to be a continued policy in the above mentioned services until further notice.

This basically means that our servicemen and women who wish to utilize $4,500-a-year grants from the government for tuition will not be allowed to enroll in these benefits.

The men and women who are currently using their Tuition Assistance will not be affected by this change, and both the Montgomery GI Bill and the Post 9/11 GI Bill will remain available to all qualifying service men and women according to Ben Axelson of syracuse.com.

This is an absolute outrage and proof of how horribly backward our nation’s values are these days. Why is it that the men and women who are putting their lives on the line are seemingly always being put on the back burner? These Washington politicians—most of whom have never hiked a pack or walked a combat patrol in the Middle East—think it’s in the best interest of the nation to limit the benefits that our men and women deserve.

This puts a message in my mind that we as veterans, and our brothers and sisters who are still serving, are being cast aside. It’s bad enough that we deal with the Veterans Affairs office (VA) and their petty bull, but now we are being punished for our elected officials’ inability to do the job that we had elected them to do. What’s next? Are our active duty service men and women going to have to start paying a deductable for the medical insurance? Are our disabled vets going to have to forfeit their compensation? What will happen to our brothers and sisters?

Some of you may be wondering how this affects us here at NIU. There are men and women who are attending NIU that are in the reserves and are utilizing their Tuition Assistance to help them achieve their degree. If it hadn’t been for Tuition Assistance, I would be so much further behind in my education and would have had to start from scratch last semester.

Taking away our servicemen and women’s Tuition Assistance could put our men and women further behind on the power curve and potentially delay their ability to succeed in civilian life. This is something we cannot allow to happen.