Army vet uses GI Bill to pursue tech career
KINGFISHER — Jeff Sargent isn’t sure yet what career he wants, but that’s not stopping him from pursuing a college degree.
“I still don’t know, but I understand the future is in technology and software. It’s everywhere,” said Sargent, who is attending Redlands Community Col- lege on the GI Bill.
He said paying for college would be impossible without the benefits he earned while serving in the Army from 2005 to 2010. He didn’t want to waste that.
“I paid for it. They took $100 out of my check,” Sargent said.
He’s on track to graduate in May with an associate degree in general studies, and plans to get a bachelor’s degree next.
Many veterans and their dependents have more time to use their GI Bill benefits under provisions in the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2017, which the president signed into law in August.
Most notably, veterans who left the military after Jan. 1, 2013, no longer will be limited to the 15-year deadline to use their GI Bill benefits. That provision gained the bill its nickname, “Forever GI Bill.”
“This law also restores benefits to veterans who were impacted by school closures since 2015, and expands benefits for our reservists, surviving dependents, Purple Heart recipients, and provides many other improvements,” Curtis L. Coy, deputy undersecretary of economic opportunity, stated in an email sent to students Aug. 17.
Named after the American Legion national commander who wrote the original GI Bill language in 1944, the legislation contains 34 new provisions, the vast majority of which enhance or expand education benefits for veterans, service members, families and survivors, Coy said.
Sargent, 31, of Kingfisher, drove a truck in the Army, but didn’t know what he wanted to do after he completed his service.
Two months out he was arrested “for being stupid,” he said. He was divorced and no longer had the structure of Army life.
“I lost all sense of who I was,” said Sargent, who spent three days in jail. “That woke me up.”
Driving a truck in the oil fields was good work, but unreliable. He would be hired, then let go with a downturn. Hired, then let go again.
That’s when he decided to go to college and start on the path to a job in the technology field.
That’s an excellent choice, say Oklahoma officials. They report there currently are 10,000 job openings in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).