I can’t exactly tell which GI Bill you are referring to Benny that you used in 2007. Because you say you are “currently in the SC National Guard,” I’m assuming you were on active duty at the time. If so, then you have the Montgomery GI Bill (MGIB) which is good in your case until 2017, however, that GI Bill does not have any transfer-to-dependents options to it.

So a better option would be to switch over to the Post 9/11 GI Bill. When you switch, the number of months of MGIB benefits you had left will switch over too. With your 18 months of deployment time, you should come in at the 70% tier, meaning your daughter would get 70% of her tuition and fees paid directly to her school, and she would get paid 70% of the book stipend and housing allowance.

With 18 years in already, you will have to sign up for a couple more years to bring you up to 20 years of service. Once you have your extension in place, go to the milConnect website and make your request. Find your daughter’s record and enter in the number of months you would like to transfer to her.

Her request will be approved before she graduates from high school, so she will have to wait to request her Certificate of Eligibility until she graduates or turns 18. When ready, she can submit VA Form 22-1990e from the eBenefits website to get her certificate in about 8 to 10 weeks. She will need a copy of it when she enrolls in school.

It goes deeper than that Kerry. Not only can you not transfer Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits because you did not serve “on or after August 1, 2009” as Congress wrote the rules, you had to be currently serving on or after that date when you make a transfer request. So just having served after the August date and not serving at the time you make a transfer would make you ineligible to make a transfer.

Congress wrote the rules the way they did because they were focused on using the Post 9/11 GI Bill as a retention tool. So to make a transfer request and get it approved, the servicemember had to be currently serving, have at least six years of service and have at least four years left on his/her enlistment at the time of the transfer request. If the servicemember was retirement eligible, meaning having served for at least 20 years, then the additional time needed was waived.

But because they set the beginning of the Post 9/11 GI Bill eligibility period at September 11, 2001, thousands of career veterans retiring before August 1, 2009 fully qualified for the transfer option but never had an opportunity to make a transfer request, due to the serving “on or after . . .” clause.

In the past, there have been a couple pieces of legislation that would have allowed for a one-time transfer opportunity, but neither piece even made it to a vote. I have started a petition that I will send to the President that if approved would allow for a transfer opportunity.