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Apr
22
efore I start, I’ll admit. I should have caught all of this. It’s my fault. I enlisted after 9/11, while I was in college. I joined the National Guard. I enlisted between my Sophmore and Junior years of college. I was told (and now know to never trust a recruiter…) that I would get up to 5 years of college paid for. Those 5 years would include any previous student loans. This was not the GI Bill, but an educational assistance offered by the National Guard. All I had to do was complete a 6 year contract. Easy enough. After enlisting, I found that my first two years of college before I enlisted would only be covered if I extended my contract another 6 years. I wanted to get through 6 before I wanted to decide if I’d do another 6. I couldn’t argue it. They told me that is the policy, and if I wasn’t informed of it when I signed up I should have asked. Of course….ask about something I didn’t know about yet? I decided to unburden my parents for all the housing, food, and general expenses of college. I kept my student loans my Junior and Senior year. My loans paid for all of my expenses, while the military paid for the tuition. Being the youngest of 3, and having my parents pay for me and my two older sisters college tuition didn’t seem fair to me. In 2005, I graduate, and get a job just across the state line. I’m getting married soon. All seems great. But, Hurricane Katrina happened. I go to New Orleans for two months, and get back two before my wedding (close call!). But soon, the company I work for loses it’s contract and I’m force to find a new job. A decent job is not easy when you grew up in woodland and farm fields. I’m forced to relocate my wife and myself 150 miles away to Washington DC. We both got decent jobs, but the cost of living is killer! So being 150 miles away from home and unit, what would a National Guard Soldier do? They’d transfer. Well…it seems I forgot to ask another question: If you accept money for college from the National Guard, and move out of the state, or transfer out of the state you must repay all loans to the National Guard. It was nice that I was not informed of this before hand, and told “We don’t have time for you to read all of this…blah blah…it’s not important. Just sign.” Thats really not the worst part of the whole thing. Yeah I was bummed, I should have read the fine print. I just wanted to help my country, I knew the life/limb risks…but the monetary risks? The worst part was that I was told that since I served 4 1/2 (out of a 6 year contract) years in the National Guard before moving out of state and transferring to another state’s National Guard, and that I only used 2/5 of the max. allowable educational funds, the paper work for me to pay back the loans will not be filed. I give my old unit my new address, new phone number, we shake hands and part ways. 6 Months later I get a forwarded letter from a student loan lending company. It seems the paper work was filed. And I was supposed to start paying 3 months ago. I am now 100 days past due, the past due notice will be put on my credit report, and my interest rate is now 2% higher. When the state did file my paper work, my old unit never filed my new mailing address. I got a stack of late notices all at once dating back 2 months from the post office. It was nice of some postal worker to track me down. If not….I’m sure I’d still be unaware of this, and one day I’d find my accounts all frozen and my wages garnished. I knew I wanted to enlist. I wanted to help my country. But because the National Guard does not employ me full time, I had to move out of state to find a job to support my self and my wife. Because of this “need” to support my self and my wife, I now have an additional $12,000 of student loan debt on top of the debt I already have.
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