VA Loan Updates

America has a mixed record concerning how it treats its veterans. It rewarded the Revolution and Civil War veterans with free land. But after World War I, Republican presidents vetoed or refused to implement congressionally authorized, retroactive bonuses to amend for the wartime wages of $1 a day.

Then came the Great Depression: The stock market crash, banks failing and national unemployment. Desperate veterans, many with their families came to Washington to seek advanced payments on their bonus certificates. They called themselves the “Bonus Expeditionary Force.” They camped along Anacostia Flats and proclaimed Henry David Thoreau’s and Mahatma Gandhi’s right of civil disobedience.

J. Edgar Hoover called them radicals and possibility communists. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the Army chief of staff, perceived them to be a threat.

The House passed a bill offering cash for their certificates. The Senate defeated the bill. The BEF conducted a peaceful march around the Capitol and returned to the camp. President Herbert Hoover sent the current army to evict the former army. MacArthur used tear gas and a cavalry charge and burned their tents.

In 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a World War I bonus bill worth $2 billion to 3.5 million World War I veterans. Then, in his fireside chat in 1943, he pledged the 11 million American servicemen would come home to a land of opportunity. On June 22, 1944, Roosevelt signed into law the G.I. Bill of Rights.

In 1945, less than 5 percent of Americans held college degrees. And fewer than two of every five servicemen had finished high school.

The postwar rush to get an education surprise everyone. For most of us veterans, it was opening the doors of opportunity to become whomever we wanted to be. And most of us studied, thought, discussed and studied some more. We had overcome the odds by surviving the war - now an education was the frosting on the cake.

Roosevelt anticipated that sweeping social changes would result from the economic opportunities after World War II. On Jan. 11, 1944, he called for “a second Bill of Rights,” saying, “under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all — regardless of station or race or creed.”

He referred to Madison’s bill of rights, and proposed new rights to an education, a job, adequate medical care, and a decent home.”

Conservatives in Congress blocked extending the G.I. Bill benefits to those disabled in defense plants or the 20 million female workers who made Rosie the Riveter a heroine on the home front.

Like many World War II veterans, I obtained two degrees under the G.I. Bill after serving six years in the Navy (1940-46). At the age of 28, with $20 in my pocket, I hitchhiked to Washington believing there was nothing I could not accomplish.

Without any doubt, the education and training provisions of the G.I. Bill had an overwhelming positive effect on the great majority of veterans, their families and their communities, most of whom took a keen interest in civic activities.

It is sad to note that veterans’ benefits have declined along with a national decline in political optimism and involvement. President Ronald Reagan was elected on a basis that the national government is “the problem.”

Now, the generation after the generation that benefited the most from the greatest social experiment ever conducted - the G.I. Bill - has undercut efforts to pass similar, if smaller benefits, to later generations.

Veterans’ benefits have been lowered steadily alongside a decline in political optimism. The Bush administration has sent reserve and National Guard units that endure more than half the casualties in Iraq. These troops receive only a third of the benefits that regular troops receive.

We should remember how other Republican presidents degraded the veterans of the Bonus Army that huddled in their tents in Anacostia Flats.

If the founding fathers - Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Madison and others - were right that the purpose of government is to provide opportunities to improve the life, liberty and happiness of our people, then the G.I. Bill was an excellent example of democracy in action.

Now is a good time to re-examine Roosevelt’s desire to extent these opportunities to a greater number of our citizens.

Found here.

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