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Extend & Expand the G.I. Bill

By VVAW

When most of us went off to Vietnam, we held many illusions. One that was quickly lost was that we were the good guys, fighting for freedom and democracy. We found that the Vietnamese people didn't like us and in fact fought against us. Our main concern became to get back to the world in one piece.

Another illusion was also held by GIs who didn't go to Vietnam and by the kids who entered the service after we did. We thought that when we came back, when we got out of the service, we would be taken care of. We were wrong: they used us when we were soldiers and they forgot us and ignored us when we became veterans.

We didn't get the parades but more important, since we can't eat a parade, we didn't get the things we needed and were promised. We found it difficult to get jobs, reflected by the large number of vets who were, and in many cases still on unemployment lines. We found health care at VA hospitals was inadequate and sometimes downright criminal. And the VA is filled with so much red tape we can't even get half the benefits we're supposed to have. And finally, there's the GI Bill.

The GI Bill was first established just before the end of World War II. With 11 million vets about to come home with no jobs waiting for them, Congress hurried through the GI Bill. It paid for tuition, books, and money to live on; in many cases, housing was also provided (though this was separate from the GI Bill). The World War II vet could go to about 90% of the colleges in the country including prestige and expensive private colleges. While life was no bed of roses, the vet could get an education and still survive. But ever since then the GI Bill has been rolling downhill.

Since 1944, new bills and supplements to old bills have made the basic GI Bill no more than a shell of what it used to be, until today the GI Bill is a good 200% less (in terms of actual buying power) than it was in 1944. Today the typical veteran does not get enough to go to anything but a state supported school or city college. While the government boasts about the high rate of usage of the GI Bill—something like 72% of Vietnam-era vets have made use of the GI Bill—they never talk about the 60% who have used less than 13 months of the Bill. Three million vets have used less than 7 months, an eloquent testimony of the number of vets forced to drop out of school because the Bill isn't enough to live on and because VA screw-ups make even the small amount that vets are supposed to get erratic and undependable. And a history of Congressional action on the GI Bill over the past several years shows more and more restrictions; most recently, a number of trade schools have been dropped from the eligibility lists, making fewer opportunities for vets.

In addition the time limits put on the Bill cut out a lot of vets. Many of us came back and had to go to work immediately or wait until our kids got older or just to get our own heads together. We couldn't get our college in within the ten-year limit even if we could afford it. On Memorial Day, 1976, over 3 million pre-Vietnam vets lost their eligibility for the GI Bill. This year, as more and more Vietnam and Vietnam-era vets have been out of the service over 10 years, another 900,000 lost their eligibility.

If we deserve the GI Bill (and we do), then we deserve it—not a piece of it, or a tattered shred. There should be no limit on the time we have to collect. We sacrificed two, three or four or more years of our lives and should not be forced to sacrifice our GI Bill either because it's too puny to pay the school bills or because there's a time limit on when we can use it.

For today's GIs, the question is different; based on a system of contributions while in the service, matched by government contributions once the GI gets out, the present version of the GI Bill means that the government can collect from the GI on the promise to pay back later—if the rules don't change, if the GI doesn't change his mind after he gets out, if he doesn't get killed off in the next war before he can collect or if government red tape doesn't make it impossible for him to collect. Since few GIs who went into the service under this new system have yet emerged, we don't know what all the problems may be, but experience tells us there will be many—and all of them will work against the vet. It is clear that the vet who decides only after the service that he wants to go to school is screwed.

Many of the new draft bills now before Congress (see article on page 3) call for some kind of resumption of the GI Bill. But knowing the tendency of the government to wave a flag to cover up empty promises, we suspect that another illusion is about to be created.

Vets need something concrete; the last time the GI Bill was raised was three years ago. Inflation sure hasn't stopped in the last three years which simply means that the GI Bill is sinking every day. Vets need the Bill extended to cover what the costs of an education now are. Vets don't need more games or more illusions!

Decent Benefits for All Vets