The GI Bill Transformed America: Will it happen again?

Thanks to the Post 9/11 GI Bill , Modern Veterans will can receive an education from virtually any educational institute in the world.  Previous Veterans who took advantage of this program succeeded in transforming America.  Can the Modern Veterans transform America again?

    During World War II 617,817 veterans were wounded and 405,399 men and women sacrificed their lives.  Hundreds of thousands of dependents were in need of assistance because of these losses.   Furthermore, millions of returning service members had spent four or more years engaged in brutal conflict.  With broad support of the American public sweeping reforms were made to the VA system.  The post WWII “Servicemen’s Read Adjustment Act of 1944,” better known as the GI Bill of Rights, or just the GI Bill transformed veteran benefits.  This bill defined who a veteran was.  It established the VA hospital system, disability compensation, loan guarantees and education benefits.

 The education benefit proved to be the most controversial of the provisions for numerous reasons.  College administrators objected because many felt the education system could not handle the sudden influx of returning veterans.  James Conant, President of Harvard University, objected because the education benefit was that it was open to all veterans and it did not “distinguish between those who can profit most by advanced education and those who cannot.”  President Conant later changed his position saying “The veterans are the most mature and promising students Harvard has ever had”.   

Once the educational benefits were enacted, American society would be forever altered.  In 1940 fewer than 1.5 million Americans were enrolled in college.  Most of these students were from the wealthy or upper-middle class families.  By 1947 that number jumped by more than a million enrollments.  At Stanford, veteran students were calls the “DARs,” for “Damn Average Raisers.  Over 2 million veterans went to college and another 3.5 million went to vocational schools because of the GI Bill.  Considering prior to the GI Bill less than 25 percent of Americans finished high school, the numbers are remarkable.  Veterans of the Korean War and the Vietnam War were offered educational assistance through GI Bill benefits.  The participation rate among Vietnam veterans was a 76 percent, which is about 25 percent more than the participation rate among WWII veterans.  It is too early to tell what effect the new Post 9/11 GI Bill will have on the current generation of veterans.  Investing in the education of veterans has proven to be good investment in the past.  
8 Easy Steps To Apply for college.  http://stuck-middle.blogspot.com/p/gi-bill-and-college-how-to-apply.html

The Conscience Voice of "Restrepo" Volunteers to Return to Afghanistan

SGT Pemble-Belkin

    Accidental Star of Indie documentary Film "Restrepo," current Army SGT Pemble-Belkin, volunteers to return to combat.  According to an article by Martin Kuz, In Stars and Stripes Newspaper.   Sgt. Pemble-Belkin has volunteered to leave a state-side role as a trainer at Ft. Polk, LA.  “I got tired of seeing units come through and then deploying. I felt like I wasn’t doing anything anymore,” he said. “I’d rather be back here, where the fight is, instead of sitting back there."  Today SGT Pemble-Belkin is stationed just a few miles from the Pech River Valley, where he was in 2008, assigned to small combat outpost name Restrepo.  Named in honor of their KIA platoon medic PFC Juan Restrepo.   
 
 


     The documentary, "Restrepo," has been nominated for 8 awards, to include an Oscar, and 4 wins including Sundance Film Festival.  This movie should be required viewing for all Americans.  The language is raw, but so is much of the video footage.  A platoon of soldiers fight to maintain their outpost against the Taliban in the mountains of Afghanistan.  This film takes you to their world, to what they are really thinking, and feeling......  As this group of hero's endure some of the fiercest fighting of the war.  
   


    Tim Hetherington, was the photographer, filmmaker, co-producer and co-director of "Restrepo," with author Sebastian Junger.  Tim was killed in Misrata, Libya on April 20, 2011, while covering the Libya conflict.   If there is any great lesson to be taken from Tim Hetherington’s death, it is this: war is terrible. I am somewhat of a realist, and I acknowledge that it is sometimes necessary," says  Richard Allen Smith, editor of VetVoice, in his article A valiant and fearless truth-teller:  Tim Hetherington.   The last project he completed before his death is his book Infidel.  The title Infidel is taken from the tattoo the men adopted as a badge of their comradeship. Warm, moving and full of humor, this book is a tribute to the "rough men ready to do violence on our behalf" and a provocative contribution to the documentation of war in our time. says the books description.