The Order Matters
A plain-language guide to VA education benefits for military families. Free to read, download or print.
The book lays out how a military family’s education benefits fit into one plan, and why the order changes what you get, often by thousands of dollars. It explains dense federal rules in a way a teenager can understand.
Read and downloaded more than 500 times.
Read, download or print, as many copies as you need.
The current version is always free at wegotyou1776.com/book, revised yearly with supplemental changes as needed.
Using it with your students
Plenty of the people advising on these benefits are learning them at the same time. The book is written so that is not a disadvantage.
- Print as many copies as you need. The download is a printable PDF and there is no limit and no cost.
- You may share it whole. It is published under a Creative Commons license, so you can copy and distribute the complete book free of charge, as long as it is credited and not sold or altered.
- Buy paperbacks anywhere, and use Ingram if your purchasing requires it. The paperback is at Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and the other retail stores, at the price each sets. For organizations that order through a wholesaler, it is in the Ingram catalog: open it on iPage with your Ingram account, or search ISBN 979-8-9967812-2-5 in whichever vendor you use.
- Check it yourself. Its rules point back to their official VA or DoD sources, so nothing in it has to be taken on trust.
- Find it where you already look. It is cataloged in MERLOT, the California State University system’s library of free teaching materials.
Copy it, print it and hand it out, whole and credited. Not sold, not altered.
What they wrote back
“This is a great book and an incredible resource.”
“I have been looking over your book, and it's extremely beneficial.”
“I am ordering this great book.”
“I will download it and ensure our students get a copy of it.”
“We will make this resource available to our community.”
“We will present this to our Juniors and Seniors who are military dependents or going the ROTC route during their college years.”
“Thank you for the guide. I will share it with my military students.”
“…our cadets and parents need guidance where and how to search. I will share the info w/ them.”
Found it useful where you work? Tell us, and with your permission your office can be added here.
On the shelf
- El Paso Public Library, Texas: Armijo Library
- Volusia County Public Library, Florida: Deltona Regional and New Smyrna Beach Regional
- Brevard County Libraries, Florida
Available through library and university platforms
- cloudLibrary
- ProQuest Ebook Central
- Kortext
- Ebook Library
- MERLOT
What it covers
Written for military families, The Order Matters walks through the benefits in plain language and shows how they stack:
The Post-9/11 GI Bill
What it pays, how tuition, housing, and the books stipend work, and how transferring it to a spouse or child (TEB) fits the plan.
Chapter 35 DEA
Survivors’ and Dependents’ Educational Assistance, who qualifies, and how it interacts with a transferred GI Bill.
The Fry Scholarship
For the children and spouses of service members who died in the line of duty, and why it and Chapter 35 cannot be used at once.
The Yellow Ribbon Program
How it extends coverage past the GI Bill cap at participating schools.
The aggregate cap
The ceiling on total months of entitlement, and how to plan a family’s benefits around it.
The phase approach
The heart of the book: using each benefit in sequence, phase by phase, so a family reaches further and often covers more years of school.
Who wrote it, and why it is free
When my daughter needed a plan for college, I had to work out how my own VA benefits worked first. What I found was complex, with conflicting information even across official sources. So I wrote her a guide. I wanted the answers in her hands before she knew to ask the questions.
Reading regulations was not new to me. Twenty-one years in the Air Force, most of it in Air Traffic Control, and a headquarters staff job reviewing, approving, routing and publishing everything from doctrine down to local instructions.
I also completed the School Certifying Official training, the same course a school’s certifying officials take to certify GI Bill enrollment.
We Got You 1776 hosts every one of its books free on this site. The companion app, College Tool, does the same math on your own numbers.
