It's crunch time. This week, the Senate is expected to take up the 21st Century GI Bill, offered by Senators Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel, after the measure passed the House last week. And, VoteVets.org is right there to keep the pressure on, with a 36-hour ad blitz on the bill.
For the next day and a half, no one in Washington DC will be able to turn on their TV without seeing an ad on the GI Bill that challenges Senator John McCain to back the Webb-Hagel bill. As you know, Senator McCain has his own watered-down measure that only gives a fraction of the costs of college to veterans. As our veterans say in the ad, "We didn't give a fraction in Iraq, we gave 100 percent."
Meanwhile, in key markets in Texas, we challenge Senator John Cornyn to back the Webb-Hagel bill. Senator Cornyn is one of the few Senators representing a large veterans population who has not signed onto the Webb-Hagel Bill.
Why's this bill so important? Let me put it in some personal perspective. One of our veterans in Texas, Alex Horton, is soon going to be using his GI Bill benefits. Those benefits will either cover college for him, or they won't. Here's how Alex puts it:
" As an Iraq War veteran, I'll be attending school in the fall under one G.I. Bill or another. My future has two paths: one is riddled with tuition debt and juggling a full time job with school, and the other is a path paved by benefits earned by my service to this country. Veteran students should not have to make a decision between food and school, and if Senators McCain and Cornyn make the right decision to support this bill, we won't have to."
These benefits are not a hand-out, as some on the other side seem to be implying. The GI Bill of Rights, signed into law by Franklin Roosevelt, promised those who served our nation full education benefits, to allow them the chance to reach for the American dream. Those veterans need to get into schools on their own merits, and need to study and work hard to make their grades. No one can do that for them. But, for their service, for generations, we've made the sacred promise to honor their service with full education benefits.
The Webb-Hagel bill is the ONLY measure that restores that promise, and updates the GI Bill to keep up with the rising cost of education. That's why every single major veterans group supports it. And that's why VoteVets.org, today, is putting on a full-court press.
Here are the ads. Please take a moment to visit VoteVets.org, as well, to support our work.
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Have you read the bill? It only applies to service members who have served post Sept. 11, 2001.
As someone who served both before and after Sept. 11, 2001, I find that insulting. Was my service before less valuable? Less respected? According to this bill, yes. What a bunch of crap.
TBI tramatic brain injury, not to be used so much as a diagnosis, because another
term on the paperwork would require less expense. The idea that giving Vets a
chance to go to school after service, and proper healthcare, seems to be such
basic services to me. How can the Bush Administration and the Veterans
Administration expect military to serve 3-4 tours, come home wounded and disappear
into the wood work? Something very wrong there.
The system, especailly the VA has problems, but there are no silver bullets. And it's all got to work within the frameworks and budgets that already exist. Especially since no one seems to be interested in building new frameworks.
The democrats get in, they vote for a pay raise, Bushie vetos. The democrats and some few republicans vote for a GI bill Bushie vetos and McCain is on his side. The dems are attempting to build a better framework but Bushie has his veto pen ready and the GOP will upholding him in shafting the wounded and injured.
The VA works within the frameworks of not providing good care to the injured and disabled vet. The VA operates under the framework of "how little can we spend on the people we sent to war and still get away with it.
It's not the proposed benefit that's the problem. It's how it's proposed to be administered.
We have been in Iraq for longer than WW2 with less to show for it than any war except maybe Vietnam. The soldiers have done their best, their officers have tried mightily the Highest echelons and the political leadership have been utterly incompetent. The US took a functioning country with no ties to terrorists and turned it into a seething civil war infested with religious warfare, tribal warfare and US corruption and incompetence The terrorists we have invited in are just additional ingredients in the disaster.. Bushie and McCain want to extend this blessing to other countries in the mid east. With stop loss provisions enrolling for 2 years in the military can turn into a lifetime spent in the service of the oil companies.
if Bushie is planning a new sort of war with McCain planning to continue and expand it then the GIs need a new kind of benefit, one which is useful in todays world.
Senator Cornyn, like McCain, is a clone of W.
On Meet the Press on Sunday Senator Webb said that although the GI bill has huge bi-partisan support, W. plans to veto the bill. This will be the first time in our history, according to Webb, that a President will veto benefits for those who have served. This is criminally appalling. And Cornyn is joined at the hip with the first President in U.S. history who will deny veteran's their justly deserved benefits.
Thank God we have choices this year. We will fire Cornyn in Texas and elect Rick Noriega, a real hero who has served his country. He did not run. He did not hide. And let us replace W. with Obama, please.
No more right wing war hawks who shirked their own responsibilities in this regard. No more members of Congress who have enabled W. for eight long and dark years. Enough is enough.
This bill will hurt more tahn it will help and is designed to limit the Presidnet and the military in its range of strategy. In particular this is designed to prevent another "Surge."
In addition, we've over promised to Veternas before. Look up the Bonus March and recall that unpaid Soldiers ran Congress out of Philadelphia in 1782.
duh
please, putting a price on it at this point is like.... well I won't say it because you are probably a vet yourself and that wouldn't be right.
NO, they will not support the soldiers or the veterans.
As my spouse says they're 1 way SOB's
If we get a decent majority in the house, senate and a democratic president then the GIs will get back all the benefits that George and the GOP stole from them plus a decent GI bill as well.
I did find one article that refers to allowing "certain officers" to transfer benefits. Great.
What benefits have been stolen?
where have I heard THAT before