Russell Dotson served 22 years with the U.S. Navy, active duty and reserve. A decorated senior chief boatswain’s mate, he was deployed overseas six times, each for a year. In 2010, he saved two lives in a rocket attack and ground assault in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

His service took a toll. His marriage didn’t survive. His children worried about him — a lot.

“I was gone for a year, home for a year, gone for a year, home for a year,” he says. “The whole family paid a price for that.”

His daughter, Paige Dotson, 22, says: “I didn’t see my dad for six years. I thought he was going to die.”

When the Navy told Dotson that, if he would re-enlist for another four years, he could transfer his Post-9/11 GI Bill educational benefit to Paige and her brother for college, he didn’t hesitate. His children each would get two years of schooling paid, giving them a shot to be the first college graduates in their family.

TELL US YOUR STORY Are you a service member who has had a hard time accessing GI Bill benefits for yourself or a family member? We want to hear your story. Email reporter Stephanie Zimmermann at szimmermann@suntimes.com.

Dotson, who’s from Michigan, didn’t know that the promised education would be yanked out from under them, that this gift would turn into debt-collection notices for his daughter amounting to $20,000 and growing.

The Dotsons are among military families on the hook for huge, unexpected bills for college they were promised would be covered by a government plan that for years has come under fire. Some children of veterans went to college, only to be told there was an error with their parents’ applications, and the funds would be cut off.

“A lot of time, they don’t even know something is wrong,” says Vadim Panasyuk, a senior manager with the nonprofit organization Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Panasyuk says he’s heard from more than 40 families who were shocked to find their GI Bill benefits canceled. One family was told: You now owe the government $60,000.

“It’s heartbreaking,” he says. “It really ruins the financial stability of some of our longest-serving families. It’s folks that gave their all for their country — their youth, their health, everything.”

The Post-9/11 GI Bill, signed into law in 2008, covers veterans who served in the military after Sept. 11, 2001. It’s meant to pay college tuition, books and housing for veterans, much like the post-World War II GI Bill that helped boost the middle class.

But there have been numerous complaints. Initially, much of the funding was going to for-profit colleges. Last year, some vets saw their housing payments delayed because of administrative glitches.

Being able to transfer the education benefit to your dependents has become a key retention tool for military services stretched thin by deployments. Branches have enticed service members to agree to re-enlist for four more years by offering the chance to pass the education benefit to a child or spouse.

But the rules have tripped up some families.

In Russell Dotson’s case, his service record was beyond dispute. In 2010, while supporting a construction battalion in Kandahar during a ground assault and rocket attack on the base, he rushed to the site of an explosion, gave first aid to a NATO contractor, then used his bare hands to stanch the bleeding of a wounded Marine.

“His quick reaction in the face of enemy fire was undoubtedly crucial in saving the life of the U.S. Marine and contractor,” his superiors wrote of Dotson’s “decisive and selfless actions.”

Then, nearing the end of what he’d planned to have been his final four-year commitment — the re-enlistment he made to get the college benefit for his kids — Dotson, 51, says he met with his command’s career counselor to make sure all of his years of service added up. He says he was told he was good to go.

Soon after, his daughter enrolled in college in Chicago at DePaul University.

Everything was going well until, toward the end of second quarter freshman year, the government stopped making payments to DePaul for her tuition and housing.

Even worse, they told her she had to repay what already was paid — more than $20,000 including interest. She ended up having to transfer to the University of Michigan, where she could get in-state tuition but still is working three part-time jobs, in addition to getting loans.

Russell Dotson says he learned, too late, that even though his command staff told him he could retire, the Defense Department used the date of his benefit-transfer application — rather than his re-enlistment date — to calculate his service time. That left him 89 days short.

As a reservist serving one weekend a month, that 89 days actually meant all he would have needed to qualify was six days of weekend service. He says he had plenty of unused “authorized absence” days that could cover the six days — if Navy officials would switch his retirement date in their records. He says they have refused.

“They made a math mistake,” Dotson, now working as a corporate recruiter, says of the Navy staffer who advised him on what he needed. “I owed them six damn days.”

His uniform still fits. He says he would put it back on and serve the six days if the Navy would let him.

“I don’t have $20,000 to give back to the federal government,” Dotson says. “And my daughter doesn’t, either. Yes, my career is my responsibility. I just want to fix it. It’s six stupid days.”

Retired Lt. Col. Todd Grant got a similar shock after 23 years in the Air Force, including a final four-year re-enlistment so he could transfer his education benefit to his children. Grant, 49, a weapons system officer who lives in Virginia, was deployed seven times and flew more than 500 combat hours.

As a boy growing up in Rhode Island, he admired his three uncles who served in Vietnam and his grandfather, who served during World War II.

“I wanted to protect my fellow Americans; I wanted to do the right thing,” Grant says of what military service means to him. “I wanted to serve and protect the Constitution of the United States. That’s important to me.”

He hoped that helping his children be able to go to college would help make up for all the missed birthdays and Christmases.

“Military life isn’t the easiest sometimes,” Grant says.

When Grant left the Air Force in 2016, the Defense Department confirmed in writing he had earned a total of four years of college to transfer to his children. But just as his son was entering the University of Central Florida last fall, the federal Department of Veterans Affairs said their funding was being cut — to just five months rather than four years of college — because Grant had gone to college in the 1990s under the previous GI Bill.

Grant says he asked an Air Force counselor specifically about whether that would be an issue before he agreed to stay in the service longer. “They said: ‘Yes, you’re eligible.’ And I said: ‘Are you sure?’ And they said, ‘Yes, you’re eligible.’ Being a good airman, I trusted my chain of command, and I trusted my service.”

Now, Grant wishes he would have not agreed to stay in the service those final four years, returned to civilian life, worked and saved for his college for his children.

“I know the rules have gotten really convoluted, and that’s why I relied on the Air Force to tell me the real information,” he says. “I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”

It’s difficult to correct such errors after the fact, according to Panasyuk, from the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans’ group. Trying to abide by the rules can be complicated by the differing dates for when a service member elects to re-enlist and when they opt to transfer their benefit.

When someone is given poor guidance by the service member’s military branch, the attitude often is “tough luck,” according to Panasyuk, who says that’s “appalling, disgraceful and completely unacceptable. You would think you could say, ‘You guys failed me on this.’ But they say, ‘That’s not our problem.’ ”

Last year, the government announced that as of July, service members who had served more than 16 years would no longer be able to transfer their benefit to dependents. That deadline was later extended to January 2020 amid complaints that the policy would penalize those who’d served the longest, many of them who’d delayed having children while they were off fighting wars.

Legislation introduced in Congress in September by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, Jon Tester, D-Montana, and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, aims to untangle some of the complex rules and make it easier for veterans to claim the educational benefits. Their proposed Post-9/11 GI Bill Transferability Entitlement Act would allow any service member who has completed at least 10 years to transfer benefits to their dependents at any time — while on active duty or as a veteran.

The bill has support from the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States and the Reserve Enlisted Association. Daniel Elkins, legislative director for the National Guard group, says the government needs to stop making service members jump through complicated hoops.

“You’ve served your country, and you should be able to transfer your benefit,” Elkins says. “We don’t think there should be a timeline on that.”

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