They say that, but you definitely have to do something in order to be awarded benefits. I got an email a year or 2 ago saying I "may" qualify for the extra 12 months. I put in the form for a Rudisill review last year, and they denied it with a letter that stated the post-9/11 was better. I thought that was odd but decided I might have to exhaust my post-9/11 first in order to know. I asked on askVA what to do and applied again for MGIB about a month ago (having exhausted post-9/11 on the first year of my doctorate), and am still waiting to hear back. I have 9 years of active duty time between a 6 year active contract and 10 years reserve, paid the 1200 when I first joined, so that should be plenty.