Out Of Many, One

The Military Coalition (TMC) members join forces to speak as one on Capitol Hill.
By Donna Budjenska

The Military Coalition (TMC), of which MOAA is a founding member, comprises more than 30 military and veterans’ organizations that have yoked their individual membership bases, offering great strength in numbers. Such strength has yielded key victories in the fight to preserve and enhance your earned benefits. n As an MOAA member, you already know you have a powerful ally in the fight to preserve your earned military benefits. But did you know that since 1985, you’ve had even more than MOAA in your corner? That’s when MOAA became a founding member of TMC, a group of military, veterans’, and uniformed services organizations that banded together to pursue common goals.

Numbering 34 organizations today, TMC represents 5.5 million members and their families, making it a strong advocate indeed. It is so strong, in fact, that Military Update syndicated columnist Tom Philpott has said, “It may be the most formidable lobbying force ever to fight on behalf of servicemembers, retirees, and families.”

TMC advocacy has contributed to significant wins for the military community, most recently the Post-9/11 GI Bill, which took effect Aug. 1. This education assistance plan has attractive benefits that the Montgomery GI Bill lacks, such as covering all in-state college tuition and offering a book stipend, a living allowance, and transferability privileges.

To gain an appreciation of how doggedly the coalition pursued these victories, check in with Col. Bob Norton, USA-Ret., a deputy director of MOAA’s Government Relations Department. “TMC established a veterans’ committee in 1998,” says Norton, who has served as this committee’s cochair since its inception. “From its beginning, the committee began advocating for a better GI Bill to match the benefit with the rising cost of education. TMC became involved in the specific Post-9/11 GI Bill as soon as Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) introduced the first version of his bill, S. 22, in January 2007,” Norton says.

Norton’s experience with the GI Bill is hard to match. When he was still on active duty he worked implementation of the Reserve Montgomery GI Bill. His knowledge base goes back at least 20 years. And his colleagues both at MOAA and within TMC likewise bring their own breadth and depth of wisdom and experience.

Tapping into this range of experience was exactly what leaders of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) were after. Founded in 2004, IAVA joined TMC in 2008 “because we are stronger together,” says Sgt. Patrick Campbell, ARNG, IAVA’s chief legislative counsel. “When I first started this job, I tried reading through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by myself, and I could not make heads or tails of the over 500 pages of legislation, until someone in the coalition sent me the summary one of the committees created.”

For IAVA, joining TMC brought “the benefit of wisdom that comes from years of experience,” Campbell says. “The issues surrounding topics like TRICARE fees date back decades, and I appreciate having members of the coalition who can truly explain the issue. I also like all the diverse perspectives that help raise good issues. [After reading the TMC’s NDAA summary,] I realized then that by working together we could focus our energies and achieve a greater outcome for servicemembers and veterans of all generations.”

College Cheer
The outcome of the Post-9/11 GI Bill is great indeed. With college education costs remaining high despite an economic downturn, the new bill’s provisions could be key to military families’ ability to attend college.

Being able to transfer the benefits equally to his two sons, Cody, a high school sophomore, and Jacob, a sixth-grader, made applying for Post-9/11 Bill eligibility a no-brainer for Col. Eric Chase, USMC, a member of MOAA’s Active Duty, National Guard, and Reserve Advisory Committee. A dawning realization of the projected costs of college prompted him to take a close look at the new bill.

“A gentleman at a class I was taking said he never thought he would be able to afford a new car every year — until he started paying college tuition for his daughter!” Chase says. “Likewise, a colleague at work is sending his son off to college [this] year, and he’s telling me it’ll be [more than] $80,000 over four years, minimum. That’s when it hit me that I needed to get serious about saving, and that’s why the Post-9/11 GI Bill is such a tremendous benefit. … It’s a good-news story for a lot of people.”

On the Same Team
Working in tandem to reach shared goals on behalf of America’s servicemembers is TMC’s hallmark, and it’s how the consortium began. After first banding together in the mid-1980s to fight the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction law, the coalition formalized in 1986. Each member organization has at least one representative assigned to one of eight legislative standing committees: Guard and Reserve; health care; military construction/morale, welfare and recreation/exchanges; military personnel, compensation, and commissaries; retired affairs; survivor programs; taxes and social security; and veterans. Temporary committees address issues that fall outside the purview of the standing committees.

Each of these committees reviews, debates, and recommends to the “body of the whole” issues for TMC to champion, explains Norton. Goals are proposed each fall and ratified in December before the start of the next session or next Congress. Each member organization’s own goals are not obviated, and a member group can elect to have its name removed from specific correspondence or testimony. Generally, the majority vote rules, but if five or more members oppose a coalition action or position, it’s tabled.

MOAA handles most of the administrative support and communication of the coalition, Norton says. One officer organization and one NCO organization cochair the TMC; currently, elected cochairs are MOAA Direcor of Government Relations Col. Steve Strobridge, USAF-Ret., and Fleet Reserve Association National Executive Director Master Chief Joe Barnes, USN-Ret.

“TMC members each are separate and have their own mission, membership requirements, and focus,” Barnes says. “Each of the 34 comes together with amazing synergy and power of collectivity, which complements the effectiveness of the individual organizations. The coalition has had a significant impact on enactment on a broad range of pay and benefits across the seven uniformed services. The Post-9/11 GI Bill is just the most recent example of that work.”

Valuable Players
“The coalition provides a forum for us to educate Congress and the public,” Strobridge says. “The challenge is to highlight an inequity [and] make them understand what the shortfall is. Then it’s a matter of getting House and Senate champions willing to stand up and talk about the importance of fixing the inequity.”

Strobridge explains that Webb, although a relatively new Democratic senator, carries a lot of weight in Congress. When Webb first introduced the new GI Bill, his colleagues liked the idea but wrote it off as too expensive. “Webb kept pounding it and emphasized that today’s military is today’s ‘greatest generation,’ ” Strobridge says. “He beat that drum in tandem with the associations in TMC. It created a tidal wave of support. You have to reach a critical mass of support.”
TMC’s amassed influence also has become a valuable resource for legislators, says Master Sgt. Mike Cline, ARNG-Ret., executive director of the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States and TMC president. “There are lots of coalitions around. In my opinion, none has the power TMC [has],” he says. “For Capitol Hill it’s almost like one-stop shopping. We cover the issues. When the Hill wants someone to testify on military issues, they come to TMC.”

Latest Victory
Campbell contends TMC was crucial to the new GI Bill win. “Having the coalition’s support presented a united front that even the White House and DoD could not undermine,” Campbell says. “Also, the technical expertise from groups like the VFW and MOAA made it possible to successfully draft a $62 billion piece of legislation that will send millions of veterans and their families to college.”

Norton’s ongoing role in the process of getting the Post-9/11 GI Bill passed gave him “a satisfying moment to my career,” he says. “When it cleared the House [in June 2008] it was an amazing day for me, after having been working on it for more than 10 years. It has a big effect on thousands and thousands of troops.”

But winning a big battle doesn’t signify the end of the war. “Once Congress gets into belt-tightening mode, watch out. Many in Congress and the Pentagon think military people are too expensive,” Strobridge says. “As long as [America is] at war, there’s empathy for the military. But with the economy in trouble and deficits rising dramatically, that could change in a hurry.”

Clearly, TMC’s mission remains as relevant now as ever.
--Donna Budjenska is a former member of MOAA’s editorial staff and an active duty Army spouse. She contributes to the Faces of MOAA column each month.

For more information:
Want to know what TMC has done for you? Visit www.themilitarycoalition.org/legislative08.htm to read about TMC’s legislative accomplishments in 2008.

The representatives of the organizations that belong to TMC are: 1. Casey Coane, AUSN; 2. Steve Sandy, NERA; 3. Vern Leubecker, MCRA; 4. Bob Jackson, VFW; 5. Patrick Nixon, ALA; 6. Bob Evans, NOBC; 7. Herb Rosenbleeth, JWV; 8. Michael Dunn, AFA; 9. Jerry Farrell, COAUSPHS; 10. Dick Schneider, NCOA; 11. Patrick Campbell, IAVA; 12. Ed Swift, CWOAUSCG; 13. Bill Matz Jr., NAUS; 14. Doc McCauslin, AFSA; 15. Gary Pollitt, MCA; 16. Steve Mirick, AMSUS; 17. Pete Hill, USAWOA; 18. Deirdre Parke Holleman, TREA; 19. Harry Bendorf, AAAA; 20. Rosalyn Knapp, AFWOA; 21. Vivianne Wersel, GSW; 22. Bill Loper, AUSA; 23. Elizabeth Cochran, ROA; 24. Mike Hoyt, MOPH; 25. Mary Scott, NMFA; 26. Fred Sanford, SMCAF; 27. Don Mucheck, FRA; 28. Joe Barnes (cochair), FRA; 29. Mike Cline (president), EANGUS; 30. Steve Strobridge (cochair), MOAA; 31. Norb Ryan Jr., MOAA. Not available for photo were representatives of AMVETS, MCL, NGAUS, REA, and CPOA. For the full names of TMC member organizations, go to www.themilitarycoalition.org/members.htm.

TMC has eight committees that meet once a month.

TMC as a whole also meets on a monthly basis to discuss matters affecting military personnel.