Investing In Veterans
Safely investing one's money requires study of the markets and a reasonable understanding of its forces. Here is an investment option that is guaranteed to pay high dividends for years to come: the education of America's Post-9/11 Veterans.
Near the end of World War II, a first "G.I. Bill" was enacted by Congress primarily to preclude Post-war depression. Some recall that lawmakers passed the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, less out of gratitude, than out of fear -- fear that at war's end an army of unemployed ex-servicemen would, again, march on Washington, as the "Bonus Army" did in 1932.
To keep the peace and spur the economy, Congress offered Veterans free college tuition, help in buying homes, and a year's worth of unemployment assistance. It turned out to be one of the best single investments the United States has ever made.
The American Dream has always included title to property. Settlers came to this continent to own their own farms, and Veterans of our early wars were often rewarded with acreage for their service. The 1944 G.I. Bill enhanced the American Dream to include both home ownership and a college education.
Low-interest, no-money-down home loans secured by the Veterans Administration sparked a boom in the construction and manufacturing industries, as Veterans moved to new homes in the suburbs, connected by new roads, and served by new schools, new churches, and new shopping centers.
Free college tuition shattered the notion that higher education was only for the rich, offering new social, economic, and intellectual opportunities to the humblest of Veterans. It also prepared a generation of young, highly motivated, glad-to-be-alive men and women to take the lead in every field of endeavor -- business, science, religion, government, education, and the arts.
Historian Milton Greenberg wrote, "By the time initial GI Bill eligibility for World War II Veterans expired in 1956, the United States was richer by 450,000 trained engineers, 240,000 accountants, 238,000 teachers, 91,000 scientists, 67,000 doctors, 22,000 dentists, and more than a million other college-educated individuals."
Educated by the G.I. Bill and motivated in part by the bill's incentive to home ownership, the Veterans of the "Greatest Generation" engineered a Post-World War II economic boom that allowed the United States to become the world's largest economy, leader of the free world, and ultimate victor in the Cold War.
Today, our youngest Veterans offer a similar promise of future leadership, thanks to a Post-9/11 G.I. Bill that was sponsored by Virginia Senator Jim Webb and 58 co-sponsors, including then-Senator Barack Obama. This new G.I. Bill is the most comprehensive educational benefits package offered to Veterans since the original G.I. Bill in 1944. It provides money for tuition and books, fees, a living allowance, and the option to transfer unused educational benefits to spouses or children. VA pays 100 percent of costs up to the highest rate of in-state tuition and fees at state colleges and universities.
Private institutions have signed up for the special Yellow Ribbon Program for academic year 2009-2010, wherein VA matches up to 50 percent of funding of the difference between tuition and fees covered by the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill and the total cost of the private institution's tuition and fees. Over 1,100 private colleges and universities have joined our public institutions in fulfilling the dream of the Post 9/11 GI Bill.
Colleges and universities can help underwrite the success of Veterans, many of whom are not taking the usual route to college. They have not spent time in SAT-preparation courses. Instead, they have been serving in high-performing units, practicing teamwork and self-discipline, and learning first hand about peace and freedom. Yet, if schools focus only on a Veteran's standardized test scores or prior academic records, they will miss so much of what these Veterans can offer to their classes and their classmates. Given a chance, they will be among the best students.
They have seen the alternatives to our way of life and appreciate our blessings in ways some may take for granted. They are mature for their years and eager to live productive lives--to make contributions. They are accustomed to working hard and to winning. They form teams easily and know a lot about building trust, having lived and worked with others from diverse backgrounds. They know how to plan, manage time, prioritize tasks, and are disciplined about goals accomplishment.
We face tremendous uncertainties and challenges as a Nation--economic, diplomatic, environmental, and social. We need motivated, energetic and highly educated young people to help us find solutions. We need to find ways, as America has before, to turn uncertainty into opportunity. The Post-9/11 G.I. Bill is a very good place to start.
In signing the first G.I. Bill, President Roosevelt assured Veterans that "the American people do not intend to let them down." In the decades since, Veterans have proven that they will not let America down. They are well worth our investment.
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GI Bill Home - (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs)
Education Benefits - (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs)
G.I. Bill - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
New GI Bill Info | Montgomery GI Bill (MGIB) & VA Veterans GI Bill ...
Learn to Use Your GI Bill - Education - Military.com
New GI Bill Helps Veterans Pursue College Debt-Free : NPR
New GI Bill will help veterans of current wars integrate into society
President Obama Delivers Remarks on The Post-9/11 GI Bill
Veterans can get help with books, housing with more generous GI Bill
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The GI Bill offers a very generous provision that allows career service members to share their education benefits with immediate family members. However, numerous otherwise qualified service members are exempted from realizing this benefit.
As currently structured, service members must be on active duty on August 1 2009, must have completed a minimum of six years of service, and must commit to serve four more years in order to share their new GI Bill benefits. The policy contains special rules waiving the additional service commitment for service members who are eligible to retire before August 1, 2012, or who have at least 10 years of service and are prevented by high-year tenure, or mandatory retirement from completing the additional service requirement. DoD recognizes that eligible service members should not lose transfer rights because of personnel policies, rules, or laws outside their control. However, no similar provisions were written to cover the other categories of otherwise completely entitled service members; each of these categories includes members with combat service, and includes:
• Service members who were retired prior to 1 August—including those prevented by high-year tenure, mandatory retirement, or other personnel rules from continuing their service until 1 August.
• Service members discharged prior to August 1.
• Service members who re-enlisted prior to 1 August and leave the service following that obligation.
Perhaps a restructuring of this policy shoul be considered so that all eligible service members are afforded the opportunity to transfer benefits to their dependents.
Thank you Eric Shinseki again for your service and now to us Veterans. IMHO we have a President and Veterans Secretary that will provide for its veterans in the right way.
And yet there are people (quietly, of course) that believe today's vets don't deserve what the World War II generation got. Pearl Harbor, September 11th, what's the difference?
“How about the media honor the American soldier and stop lying” - A Former Alaska Governor.
I’ll be attacked for being Unpatriotic for this but that is the way it is here in the good old US of A now days. If one isn’t kissing the feet of a veterans then you’ll be attacked as a commy or fascist. I’m really tired of it.
How about the government give an education and healthcare to ALL American citizens. This would really make this country great.
GWW Patriot
The government does not have money without taking it from the private sector so in actuality the government cannot give anyone anything. It can take from one person and give to another. So if you decide that a colledge education is not right for you and you then become succesful without it, you are still paying for a college education just not your own. That is not freedom and liberty that is socialism, and not what made America different and the greatest country on earth. Work hard, work smart and you can do or become whatever you want in America, that is still an attainable dream in this country for everyone.
We have a president that is black and that is the highest office in the land, so that in itself shows you that you can do anything you set your heart to and you do not need government giving you everything in life. And if you do not earn something you do not respect it, that is an age old philosophy but it is as real today as it has ever been.
You've told me nothing I don't already know. I wont argue about it on this thread. strike the last sentence of my post. Maybe I shouldn't have brought it up here. I'll go choose another of many threads on HP to vent.
THEY SERVE TO PRESERVE
They serve to preserve our forefathers dreams,
Prayers, visions and determination.
Risking all in pursuit of fulfillment of duty
To God, freedom, faith, honor and nation.
Despite dismemberment, death and loneliness
Patriots enlist to safeguard our flag.
With honor, faith, purpose and courage
They battle the sadistic that brag.
Throughout man’s past as a creature of earth
War has always plagued his expectance.
Greed, hate, fear, envy and rage
Have overruled rapture and repentance.
David was a soldier who lived by his faith
Which gave him the will to become brave.
He stood up to terror and toppled the giant
Leaving Goliath headless and alone in his grave.
David’s call thrives in hearts of soldiers today
Shielding liberty from the warmongers of hell.
Facing down evil refusing to summit
Ensuring freedom and justice are alive and well.
Those of us blessed by the safety of home
Must remember the sacrifice of the few.
Run up your flag and show your support
For the heroes of the red, white and blue.
By Conservative Poet
Tom Zart
Most Published Poet
On The Web
General Shinseki, I'm glad that President Obama appointed you to your position for I am confident you will make certain the needs of our returning Servicemen and Servicewomen are met, and you won't be shy to point out to the President the areas where improvement in meeting those needs is required.
Thank you for taking care of those who put it all on the line for their fellow American citizens.
I'm a former war vet. But having said that, my time is past. I'm retired...
if you are basing vet by race no.
Learn to read, I said ALL vets.
I agree. Nothing less for men and women who risked their lives. However, having been accorded this privilege, they must also turn towards those whom they've protected and served and continue their patriotic ways in their endeavors.
Steamboat, please read my comment above because you are sorely mistaken to contend that any American, particularly those who have killed, should be regarded as any better than any other citizen. It's so sickening that a human being could actually be so warped as to contend that killers should get better treatment than non-killers is so sick and perverted that you really should consider what you have said.
Our American soldiers are placed in peril and if they kill, it is not because they love killing it is to protect our Nation and our Interest here and abroad. Without those willing to die for our freedom, we would have no freedom. You call them killers, I call them hero's.
I apologize for my poor grammar, but your comment needs an immediate response, even if it could have been written better.
I thought it was like this previously. Vets went to the top of the line for jobs, etc. Yes, vets should receive preference, especially disabled vets and war vets..
What about the veterans of deep south Texas. They have been asking for a Veterans Affairs hospital for their areas' over 100,.000 veterans and they have been ignored for the past four decades. It is a shame that these veterans from this rural area are without proper care after they have done their service to our country. Everyone supports the veterans in our area, but what good does it do if Congress as a whole and the VA do not listen and just pass them over in a whim. There is no Justice for the Veterans of south Texas. Many are starting to think that they are not heard because it is a predominately Mexican American population. Say it ain't so Mr. Shinseki, say it ain't so. President Obama promised three times to help solve the problem, but he has forgotten. It was just politics plain and simple to have the vote. While America speaks of health care, veterans in south Texas do not have any.
treto, I too (read my comments) have gripes with the VA and their care (some areas good, some areas poor------some VA employees good, some miserable). And I speak from experience being a disabled vet.......
You are insulting with your lack of knowledge about the nation's second most populated state. All those clinics are anywhere from 400 to 600 miles away from the Rio Grande Valley.
There is no reason that a state with a huge military presence and a huge military retiree population should have any veteran needing to drive 8 hours to be seen in a clinic that is already serving a large metropolitan area.
I live in Houston-a good 8 hour drive to the RG valley and a good 12 hour drive to Amarillo
Treto-
Give the Mr. Shinseki a chance to work the issue. I feel your pain in your message and I agree with you that veterans need more and better services no matter where they are across America. I feel your pain brother.
treto, I gave you ALL Texas VA hospitals and out-patient clinics. And for trying to inform and help a fellow vet, evidently I was censored:
Anyway, VA Medical Hospitals (trying to stay S. Texas) --Big Springs, El Paso, Harlingen, Kerrville, San Antonio...
Out Patient Clinics (trying to stay S. Texas) ---Austin, Beaumont, College Station, Conroe, Corpus Christi, Harlingen, Laredo, McAllen, New Bruenfels, Odessa, 6 in San Antonio.
I wish the rest of America had as many facilities as Texas. I've always envied Texas for all the facilities they have.
Why not establish high quality universities as a federal system and make them cost free to the student (let their increased earnings be the payback)? Do we actually want the best and brightest to undergo a survival of the luckiest in combat?
Oh, and if you're interested: 11E...68-7
Public universities, I think, are better run by the states, geared towards their unique needs and culture. In California, for instance, UC Davis has a fabulous veterinary program (for livestock, race horses, and marine life), Iowa has a great agriculture progam, and the Colorado College of the Mines (I think) serves their interests -- and those of the country at large -- very well.
Separately, I don't think serving in the armed forces should be considered "survival of the luckiest." In fact, not until post-Vietnam could someone really run for President and some other high offices without having military service somewhere on their resume. But in any event, that's flipping Secretary Shinsheki's point around; he is saying that those who ARE veterans should have a good chance at higher education.
No a military record should not be a pre requisite for the Presidency.
Great post and so very true. With your help this Administration has done more for the VA just in the past 6 month than accomplishments since Viet Nam. AVBI. org Also, STRENGTH & DRIVE, '65!! Thank you!
I'm using my benefits to become a Registered Nurse. Two years to go. Thank you for your work, Sir.
Hope you consider working at a VA facility. We vets need people like you.
As a Director of Veterans and Military Families for Progress, I thank you for your wisdom, sir, and your service. My two sons served in Iraq and I wholly agree with you on the need to invest in them and all those, like them, who joined when economic opportunities, college, etc. seemed a distant and hard-to-attain possibility. Thankfully, they are both going to enjoy the benefits of the G.I. Bill this school year and attend colleges of their choice, something that never would have been possible had it not been for the new Post 9/11 GI Bill.
I have been wholly encouraged and impressed with the expediency with which this administration and your Department have taken to renewing America's part of the "sacred promise" to its veterans. I look forward to more of your and this administration's leadership moving forward and am confident in what will be accomplished.
As a proud Virginian, don't forget that Jim Webb was the architect and the marketing rep. for this legislation.
Senator Webb just went to Burma/Myanmar, and got an American released who REALLY did something dumb. And got to talk to the head-general, which is apparently pretty rare. How f-ing cool is that (oh, but don't tell John Bolten, oK? He'll have another fit.)
I am happy about the living allowance but the transfer of benefits to dependents is not as simple as it sounds. I had trouble finding clear info on this. What I found said I had to have over 10 years in, and commit to an additional four before benefits are transferred. That's not a universal benefit.
Education is both a boom and a bust. These educated veterans went on to lead very productive lives. However, due to their higher than average rates of education, they thought more deeply about life and politics. They spawned the "Hippie" generation, a time of reflection and quiet rebellion against settled morals and accepted standards. They were hard to govern and control until they reached their earning years, about Reagan's time in office. Now, the majority of that generation are motivated more by money and the fear of their own mortality and are easy to govern. Any government needs a certain degree of authoritarian power. With an educated society, there are questions, some are deep and counter productive for a governing body bent on serving themselves and their masters/benefactors first. Questions require responses. I'm babbling, sorry. The easy way to say this is-look at the red state-blue state map and think of it as a map of literacy rates. Now, while thinking this, think which states are the most easily governed because of the very basic and inane concerns of their citizens. Republicans will kill any attempt to educate the common man.
Many people were against the GI Bill when it was first proposed in 1944 because they didn't want working class people to have the chance at a college education. More than anything else, the GI Bill has made college accessible to many working class people. To many powerful people this is threatening.
As a former Marine who is still using the the GI Bill...I have to agree. This is one of the best things ever!
I haven't had to pay a dime out of pocket to go to school. I'm almost done with my Bachelor's now. And, unfortunately, I didn't sign up for the new Bill. However, the old GI Bill never disappointed me. I'm sure the new one will be even more beneficial.
VA Healthcare is a totally different issue though. That one needs a little work. : )
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