Probably most of you who keep up with this blog know about what' happening with the new GI Bill (not as much as should be happening, I fear!) But Time Magazine did a nice article, "A Brief History Of: The GI Bill," this week that you might find interesting. It's on page 25 of the June 9 issue of that magazine. If nothing more, I hope it will encourage you to write your congress persons because it looks as if it will require more than the usual support to get it past a Bush veto.
By the way, I consider the argument that great educational opportunities for our returning GIs will reduce the number of soldiers re-enlisting fallacious. For one thing, the armed services have a stop-loss program that assures they can keep soldiers who are needed (I know because my grandson was kept beyond what he originally volunteered for.) The other reason that this reasoning doesn't cut the mustard is that good programs for returning GIs encourages more enlistment; it doesn't discourage it. Maybe one of the reasons volunteerism is down is because of all the cuts in programs for our soldiers.
I should also mention that Senator John McCain also opposes this new version of a GI Bill.
This bill doesn't do for this decade's soldiers what the first bill did for our soldiers but it at least would cover their tuition at state universities. I don't see how we can do less for them but apparently Bush and McCain don't see it as I do. Hey, those are just the facts. Hard to believe what's happening politically these days, huh?
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson wrote the foreword for Eric Dinyer's book of patriotic quotations, Support Our Troops, published by Andrews McMeel. Part of the proceeds for the book benefit Fisher House. Her chapbook of poetry won the Military Writers Society of America's award of excellence.
Monday, June 2, 2008
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