COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Leaving Military: Veterans
Vet Advocates Fight for New G.I. Bill
Christian Lowe, Military.com
February 14, 2008
It's a
program that meant a college degree for millions who wouldn't
previously have been able to afford one, and its advocates say the
benefit helped make the "greatest generation" what it is today.
But the World War II veterans who took advantage of the G.I. Bill of
Rights to gain a college education got a lot more out of the deal than
today's vets, say advocates and some key lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
A series of revisions to the G.I. Bill since World War II turned what
had been a "thank you" from the U.S. government for military service
into a recruitment tool, but one not nearly as generous as the
original. What once paid for an entire four-year degree and kept food
on the table for a penny-pinching student now leaves many vets using
today's Montgomery G.I. Bill shelling out plenty to attend college.
"We've time and again shown that the disparities from the current G.I.
Bill that was introduced as a peacetime recruitment device just does
not measure up to the service that our people have been giving," said
Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., the principle backer for a modernized G.I. Bill,
at a Feb. 13 news conference in Washington.
For example, Webb's staff found that the average yearly payout for a
today's G.I. Bill came to about $5,800 for room, board and tuition.
Problem is, the average cost for a year of public college comes to a
whopping $17,400 -- nearly three times today's payout for education
benefits of military service.
"We've got to come forward and bring into existence a G.I. educational
bill that is framed for the 21st Century," said Sen. Chuck Hagel,
R-Neb. "If we are going to continue to meet the high standards of our
all volunteer force … we must have the best people and we must
incentivize those people."
So Webb, Hagel and more than 30 other senators have teamed with
veterans' advocacy groups to draft the "Post 9/11 Veterans Educational
Assistance Act." Their upgraded G.I. Bill would provide full tuition,
room and board for veterans of the active duty military as long as
they'd served after Sept. 11, 2001.
The bill would go further, however, by providing a $1,000 cash stipend,
up to $1,200 annually for tutoring assistance, and it would pay for any
testing fees for licensing after graduation.
"We view the G.I. Bill as the cost of war," said Paul Rieckhoff,
founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and a strong
proponent of Webb's bill. "The troops in Fallujah and Kandahar deserve
the same commitment from our nation in war as those who fought in
Normandy and Guadalcanal."
Lawmakers are still fine tuning the bill and are looking at adding
language that would include benefits for National Guard and Reserve
veterans, many of whom have deployed for combat tours since 9/11.
But the bill's future is clouded by politics and the upcoming
presidential election, advocates say. The first bill died in committee
last year under partisan budget wrangling - some lawmakers objected to
the new G.I. Bill's cost, which is double the current program’s
$2 billion price tag.
"It doesn't matter where you stand on this war, but you have a moral
obligation to support the folks who served," Rieckhoff added.
And it's a cost that most are willing to pay as a tribute to the
service of veterans who've seen tough fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and
elsewhere in the global war against terrorism.
"I just think that this is a no-brainer for the United States
government to reward service in a way that is commensurate to the
service that was given," Webb said. "And it's been an eye-opener over
the past year to see that this is in any way viewed as political."
This archive consists of a topically organized selection of
articles culled by members of the Counter-Recruitment List Serve from printed
publications and web sites. The archive is not complete. We have chosen
material relevant to the work of