create what some have called the “Greatest
The Next Generation Benefits From Another G.I. Bill
Generation.” The G.I. Bill was an extremely important, far reaching,
and
transformative
piece
of
legislation that successfully reintegrated the millions of veterans who returned abruptly to American society after several years at war. The bill’s various components of employment and unemployment provisions, home and business loans, and educational opportunities precluded the potential disaster of veterans returning home to another depression. Its impact went beyond the transformation of college campuses and the American higher educational system; it was felt throughout American society in its growing middle class,
By Carl J. Bradshaw Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army-Retired
increasing civic engagement, democratization of political institutions, and the very definition of what it is to be American.
Like the bill passed in 1944, a new G.I. bill will allow those in the armed forces to better educate themselves. Attleboro’s veterans agent explains how.
THE END OF WORLD WAR II WOULD BRING AS MANY CHALLENGES AS REWARDS TO AMERICAN SOCIETY. Over nine million service members would return to the states after several years at war. There was no way to absorb the transition, including the rapid change to the military-industrial complex, without significant action on the part of the federal
government.
The
Servicemen’s
Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the G.I. Bill, was the country’s attempt to provide a smooth transition to a new economy. Few anticipated the impact the bill would have on American society or understood it would help
FDR signs the first GI Bill in 1944 (Public Domain Photo)
Americans entered World War II with a keen memory of the Great Depression. During that depression veterans of World War I were very vocal and demonstrative about receiving bonuses they had been promised, but never received. A veteran march on Washington D.C. in the fall of 1932 might have impacted the reelection of President Hoover. President
Attleboro Democracy Magazine, Spring 2012 Click To Return to Table of Contents
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