Let’s Put Some Straps On Those Military Boots

It’s been 51 years since I used the G.I. Bill to get a Bachelor of Science Degree and a Masters Degree from that “Harvard of the Midwest,” Moorhead State Teachers College. I had been “recruited” by Fritz Bierhaus to play football and by T. Edison Smith to pitch baseball for the Dragons.
Being “recruited” in those days meant that the coaches arranged some odd jobs around the campus such as cleaning toilets, serving as dorm “counselors” (bouncers) and shoveling coal so one could make enough to pay Minnesota’s tuition.

I also got a job at the Frederick Martin Hotel’s restaurant, “The Barn,” made friends with Chef Al, who saw to it I ate regular.

I thought it was a great life and a move upward. After all, I had cleaned up behind milk cows with a shovel for years so shoveling coal and cleaning nice white toilets instead of our two-holer on the farm was a piece of cake and much easier on the olfactory system.

I had earned my G.I. Bill by becoming a Marine Corps officer upon college graduation. I had spent part of my college summers serving in the Marine Corps Reserve, vacationing at that island paradise, Parris Island, South Carolina, the Marine Corps Boot Camp and Rest Home on the East Coast. After serving for three years as machinegun platoon leader, regimental fiscal and accounting officer (that fit perfectly with my major in English Literature), and rifle company commander, I returned to civilian life with my wife and three kids.

While in the Marine Corps I had decided I wanted to teach English but I needed to get a teaching certificate and a higher degree if I wanted to make more money.

With a wife and three rug rats and no pot or window it would have been impossible to go back to college without the G.I. Bill. With tuition and books covered and a tiny stipend for living expenses, I spent about 18 months working on a Masters, thanks to U.S. taxpayers. I’m not sorry for taking the money. I earned it.

We were poor farmers but didn’t know it because we ate well. We raised beef, dairy cows, horses, pigs, ducks, geese, rabbits, chickens, had an apple orchard, picked wild fruit, and had our own smokehouse. We had a huge garden complete with asparagus, horseradish, and other exotic stuff. We ate it all—except horse (It’s a French delicacy, you know). We often caught bullheads, carp, catfish, northerns, and walleyes in lakes and in the Platte and Mississippi Rivers.

We were never as poor as when Mississippian Dickie Scruggs described his situation: “We were so poor, that if I hadn’t been a boy, I wouldn’t have had anything to play with.” That’s poor.

“The Greatest Generation” Went To College

In 1944 Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law the World War II G.I. Bill. (Does any young person know what G.I. stands for?)

In the end the first G.I. Bill paid for tuition at any public or private college or university in the country, ancillary fees, textbooks, and a small monthly stipend for rent and groceries.

Eight million out of the 16 million who served took advantage. Veterans could pick Slippery Rock State, Yale, Moorhead State Teachers, Notre Dame, or Harvard—no questions asked. And expenses paid.

FDR thought that the world would probably have a deep recession after World War II (It happened after WW I) and that millions of veterans would not be able to get jobs. At least, that’s how he sold the G.I. Bill to Congress. By putting millions of veterans into college classrooms we would avoid unemployment and would be lifting the intellectual and educational level of the entire society.

All studies indicate that the country has benefited on this World War II investment at an 8:1 dollar. But in between wars we tend to forget who has done the fighting. Rudyard Kipling best expressed the thoughts of soldiers and reality in “Tommy” from his “Barrack-Room Ballads” (edited):

While it’s Tommy this an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, fall be’ind,”
But it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind
There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind
O it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind.

For it’s Tommy this and Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out the brute!”
But it’s “Savior of ‘is country,” when the guns begin to shoot;
Yes it’s Tommy this an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
But Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool—you bet that Tommy sees!

After WW II and the Korean War Congress gradually stripped the G.I. Bill of benefits because we were in Kipling’s “Chuck him out” mode. So when Gulf Wars I and II came along and we realized that Joe Sixpack and Janie Redneck were suddenly the “Savior of ‘is country,” our funds for veterans attending college fell far short. Now veterans must contribute money toward their education funds and the Pentagon comes up with a measly half-share. Many veterans can now expect to leave college with $30,000 to $60,000 in loans!

A majority of our “volunteer” comes from the poorest counties in the country. Most of our casualties come from the smallest and poorest states: Vermont, North Dakota, Wyoming, South Dakota, Oregon, Kansas, Nebraska, Delaware, Iowa, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

“Volunteers” Will Do Anything To Get Out Of Dodge

Even as far back as the 1950’s most of the enlisted Marines under my command joined up so they could get out of Dodge, whether it be Kansas, Iowa, or Lousiana.

I wanted to get out of Little Falls and the cowbarn too. In my first 14 years we were either too poor to travel because of the Great Depression or we couldn’t get gas or tires during WW II to run a tired 1928 Essex sedan.

The only trips over 35 miles from home I remember taking until I reached 18 were athletic trips on schoolbuses to those faraway suburbs of Minneapolis and the Range towns of Crosby-Ironton, Hibbing, and Coleraine.

I also remember a non-athletic trip to Minneapolis with a girlfriend’s family when I was 17 to see Rise Stevens sing the title role of “Carmen” in a Metropolitan Opera production. It’s still my favorite opera.

This is why I object to the term “volunteer army.” Volunteer, hell. Kids are bored to death in Dodge. They can’t get jobs unless its minimum wage or worse. They can’t afford higher education. They can’t afford to travel unless it’s by thumb or they use drugs. They see themselves withering away in declining towns, cursing the tumbleweed and the ragweed. What is going to satisfy them once they have seen Paris on the Internet? A few actually choose Baghdad, although most of them hope against hope they will end up in Diamond Head and Waikiki.

The generals keep insisting we have the best Army ever assembled, the best-led (!!!), best-equipped, best trained…And then the general makes this statement: “There are 300 million Americans being protected by so very few. One of the reasons we are calling up reserve and National Guard units is because we don’t have enough active-duty soldiers to cover all the demands of the world.”

And then our politicians and generals are stupid enough to get involved in 24/7 urban warfare in Baghdad and having small Marine patrols chasing a few Taliban on mountain-goat mountainsides in Afghanistan. What a ridiculous way to change the hearts and minds of 1.3 billion Muslims. Think of it while you’re shopping.

Five senators have sponsored a new G.I. Bill with almost the same benefits as the old. So far it has passed the Senate over the objections of that hero of the Rio Grande, George Bush, and the Great Flip-Flopper of the Republican Party, John McCain.

Two Vietnam vets, Senator Jim Webb, D-Virgina, and Senator Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, are the principal sponsors. Webb was Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy but finally got some sense and turned Democrat. Hagel should have run for president he’s got so much sense. They think that vets of Iraq and Afghanistan should get the same benefits as the vets of WW II. They’re right.

Senator Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey, graduated from Columbia University on the WW II G.I. Bill. Today he would get 13 percent of the cost from current benefits. Senator John Warner, R-Virginia, graduated from Washington and Lee and the University of Virginia Law School on the old G.I. Bill. The current law would cover only 14 percent. Senator Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, graduated from the University of Hawaii on the G.I. Bill. He had an arm shot off in Italy. The current law would pay only 42 percent of his costs. Returning vets have three times the unemployment rate as those who went shopping. Many are homeless and have drug problems created by traumatic brain injuries.

Of course, the big objection from Lurch is that his have and have-more friends who make more than $500,000 would be called upon to pay for this new bill through a surcharge on their taxes. Wouldn’t you think that the rich, who don’t even realize we have two wars going—unless they are profiting from them—would be willing to pay a little tax so that the poor and the middle-class who have been protecting their asses could go to college?

Almost half of our “volunteer” army comes from rural and poor counties. The other half comes from the poor in cities. Remember that sign on the windshield of a National Guard vehicle traveling the streets of Baghdad about three years ago: “Two weeks a year, my ass!” That’s not exactly Semper Fi.