(HOST) Commentator Bill Seamans supports the idea that one of the best ways to help veterans return successfully to civilian life – would be passing a new and improved G.I. Bill of Rights.
(SEAMANS) This past weekend as we the people expressed our heartfelt appreciation for the service and sacrifices of our military veterans a small op-ed piece appeared in the New York Times. It was submitted by Senators Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, and Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska – both of them veterans who had been severely wounded in battle. As we say, they "have been there and done that."
They offered what I think is a great idea long past due to truly help our legion of new veterans emerging from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and after future military service – a great idea that regretfully has not been followed up by the pundits with the persuasive power to rouse the attention of our politicians who could make it possible.
Webb and Hagel proposed that we restore the World War Two G.I. Bill of Rights. The original G.I. Bill was regarded as one of the most important pieces of social legislation in our contemporary history. It paid in full a vet’s college tuition and fees; it bought all textbooks and provided a monthly stipend to help them with room and board. There was no restriction on the choice of colleges – if the vet could get in the G.I. bill paid no matter how much the tuition – and it was free of bureaucratic red tape.
For those not college-bound the G.I. bill paid all expenses for vocational training and guaranteed loans that enabled many vets to set up their own business ventures. Eight million of the sixteen million who served in World War Two took advantage of the G.I. Bill and they went on to create a vibrant new Middle Class that invigorated a nation in the postwar doldrums.
Today’s veterans are offered a plan called the Montgomery G.I. Bill which is far from the original. It requires a serviceperson to pay $100 a month for the first year of his or her enlistment in order to receive a flat payment for college that averages $800 a month – not enough to allow veterans to attend even many community colleges – and with the finest universities costing $40,000 a year or more the Montgomery G.I. Bill is hardly Iike the dream machine of World War Two.
And the G.I. bill was a good deal for the national treasury – not only did it pay for itself but for years also produced billions of dollars in the higher income taxes paid by its better educated and thus higher income earning beneficiaries – so we can see that restoring the original G.I. Bill is a win-win proposition whose time is now.
I was one of those whose lives were profoundly changed by the World War Two G.I. Bill and I for one, fervently hope that we have some in Washington with the apolitical vision of those who made the original G.I. Bill of Rights the reality beyond the dream.
Bill Seamans is a former correspondent and bureau chief for A-B-C News in the Middle East.