If you get one o them big bonuses, don’t get shot or anything. Cuz if you do and you can’t go back – the government will want it all back due to you ‘not completing your tour of duty’.

By the way – I am a Vietnam-era vet also, female, and boy does that add another layer of complexity to almost everything – especially in VA health care.

You already have at least a Bachelors Degree from a 4-year college
You speak Farsi or Persian, or Arabic
You have (in addition to the degree) a ’special skill” in something they really want
You have completed Officer Candidate School.

Now, if you have a BA/BS degree and have completed OCS, you are an officer. Not an enlisted peon, but an officer. Already.

So if you are an officer with a special skill and speak a middle eastern language, you can get $40,000.

Other than that – the $10,000 the earlier poster mentioned is probably about the max.

Anyway, back then you had to have 180 consecutive days in before you were eligible for the G.I. Bill. It was a flat monthly stipend then; you paid for tuition, room & board and books out of your $270/month (at the time, my rent was $135 for a studio in Tucson). I survived without too much trouble.

When I left DOD contracting work in 1978 I still had five years or so left on the ten years from separation you were allowed to get the benefits, so I went back to school and got the B.S.B.A. in 1979. By that time it had gone up to $311/month, and I couldn’t have paid my own way without the savings I’d accrued while on the DOD job.

Later, when I started seeing how lousy that Montgomery bill’s benefits were, I was really really grateful I’d gotten in and out when I did (Vietnam-era vet, meaning not in-country but served during that war).

…

1986 E-1 w/4 month service = $699.00/month
GI Bill deduction – $100.00/month for a year
Taxes $ SS – $118.00

Paycheck for the month = $481.00 in 1986 dollars

For this I was given the opportunity to qualify for up to $300 a month for a maximum of three years. They just loved to tell you how you were getting $10,800 for only putting up $1200.

What they didn’t tell us was that you had to be a FULL TIME student to qualify for the full $300 a month. Not a full time student? Sorry, you don’t qualify for the full amount. I found this out when I tried to use my benefit to pay for some CAD classes at my local community college. It ended up being too many hoops to jump through so I just got a loan from my Dad.

My $1200 ended up being a donation because I never used it within the 10 years.