Student veterans advocate for two bills now in Congress

By Alexandra Villarreal

When Kristofer Goldsmith was 18 he enlisted in the U.S. Army and spent a year in Iraqi combat zones. Now in his 30s, he’s a veteran and political science major at Columbia University.

And, as of last month, Goldsmith is homeless after emptying his bank account trying to pay for college. $35,000 in debt, he’s couch surfing to complete his education, although he’s only in his second year.

Because of Goldsmith’s general discharge, which he was given in 2007 for missing his flight to Baghdad after a suicide attempt the night before, he can’t invoke the G.I. Bill to fund Columbia, so he’s stuck with the check for a degree that’s nowhere near finished.

Goldsmith falls into a category shared by approximately 13% of veterans who received less-than-honorable discharges from the armed forces, a significant number of whom cite Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injuries or military sexual trauma as the trigger for the misconduct that led to their separation from their unit.

In the military, there are five types of discharges: honorable, general, other-than-honorable, bad conduct and dishonorable. According to Goldsmith, as soon as a service member is given a discharge from any of the four less-than-honorable categories based on an accusation of “misconduct” from a superior officer, he starts losing his benefits, like healthcare from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and financial support for higher education. To receive a general or other-than-honorable discharge, there is no need for a court martial; the U.S. military takes the single testimony of a superior officer as proof that one of his troops has misbehaved.

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