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In Boston, Illinois...GI Bill Struggles Win Gains

By VVAW

In Boston in early February, veterans at the University of Massachusetts College III were told that their GI Bill was cut off. College III does not grade its students in the traditional way, but instead used the pass/fail grading system. The VA cannot monitor a vets progress, call him in for "counseling" and throw him off the GI Bill because his grades have plummeted from an "A" to a "B", so, the VA chopped the vets off the Bill.

Seeing their chance for an education rapidly disappearing, the vets called a meeting to find the best way to fight the cutoff--and that was all it took. The VA backed down; almost immediately the vets were informed by the VA that it was all a "mistake."

Not only has the VA been backing down when faced by determined resistance. Other agents of the same ruling class have also slithered away from unified groups of veterans. In Illinois, when a Committee of the State Legislature went into a hearing where they hoped to eliminate the Illinois State Military Scholarship program (under which the sate pays vets' tuition), 200 vets packed the haring. Though political analysts predicted the vote would be close, the presence of a large group of angry vets helped produce an 18-2 vote against the cutoff. (That struggle is not yet over since the state has now decided that it has only 1/2 the necessary money to pay the scholarships, and Illinois veterans are beginning to organize for a prolonged struggle.)

These relatively small attacks, which can have such a devastating affect on the lives and futures of individual vets, are coming down all over the country. They are not, as the VA would like us to believe, a "mistake," but instead part of a concentrated offensive to throw vets out of school and thus save, for the ruling class, the bucks they can use to invest and make a profit from. Hundreds of thousands of late checks are not a mistake: neither are the numerous media attacks on vets who "cheat" on the GI Bill and try to turn public opinion in favor of whatever cuts they make in the Bill in the future.

And, more significant, there is no "mistake" about the new GI Bill which eliminates the present system (see the last Veteran for more details). And, although the new Bill is sweetened up for vets by including and 8% raise in benefits (to cover a 32% cost of living increase!), it also features the end of advance payments for vets on the Bill. Simply, that means that most vets are going to have to come up with the tuition payments and fees themselves without any help from the Bill; in turn, that means that hundred of thousands of vets will not be going to school simply because they don't have the money, particularly in the face of constantly rising tuition costs.

The examples of what happened in Massachusetts and Illinois point toward the direction veterans must go.

VVAW has a national campaign to Extend and Expand the GI Bill. This country is an economic crisis, and the country's rulers are trying to save a few bucks at the expense of veterans. We say that we must organize and fight to defend what we have, the make the Bill better and to have it cover all veterans. It is only by getting together in our numbers as demonstrated in Massachusetts and Illinois, that we can accomplish our aims.