Many Iraqi War Veterans have been fighting longer than most WWII Veterans.
http://www.military.com/news/article/vets-to-mccain-back-new-gi-bill.html
Vets to McCain: Back New GI Bill
April 10, 2008
Inter Press Service
SAN FRANCISCO - A leading political action committee founded by veterans
of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has launched a new internet video
and petition demanding that Sen. John McCain throw his sup****t behind a
new GI Bill.
The video -- a joint project of Brave New Films, VoteVets.org and
WesPAC, a group formed by former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe
General Wesley Clark -- is aimed at persuading the Republican nominee
for president to agree to provide improved education benefits for
soldiers returning home from the two wars.
The video features four veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
testifying about the problems they have with the current GI Bill.
"When I enlisted, I was under the impression that my college would be
paid for, that I would have everything taken care of," Iraq war veteran
Joshua Drake said in the video.
Take Action: Tell your public officials how you feel about the New GI
Bill.
"The current GI Bill is inadequate," the former Navy Corpsman added. "It
hasn't kept up with the cost of inflation, or the cost of tuition or the
cost of books. ... If I could talk to John McCain, I would try to appeal
to him as a fellow veteran."
Originally enacted in the waning days of World War II, the GI Bill of
Rights is one of the most popular social programs in U.S. history. When
President Franklin Roosevelt signed the GI Bill into law in 1944, he saw
it as part of his New Deal package of social programs. The law,
officially called the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, promised returning
veterans that the government would pay the full cost of tuition and
books at any public or private college or job-training program. It also
provided unemployment insurance and loans to buy homes and start
businesses.
But over the years, the GI Bill has lost most of its value.
The current Montgomery GI Bill, passed in 1984, asks active duty members
to accept a pay reduction of $100 per month through 12 months of
military service. When they return to school, they receive $1,100
monthly for a maximum of three years of education benefits. It is an
amount that doesn't come close to covering the cost of a modern college
education, veterans say.
Advocates are sup****ting a bipartisan bill by Sens. Jim Webb and Chuck
Hagel that would bring back WWII-era standards of providing vets with
full tuition, room and board. So far 51 senators have signed on as
co-sponsors. But the bill remains nine votes short of the supermajority
necessary to dissuade a filibuster.
John McCain has refused to comment on the bill. Numerous calls and
e-mails to McCain's Senate office in Wa****ngton and campaign office in
Virginia seeking comment on this story went unreturned.
"It's time for Senator McCain to stand up for veterans and be a leader,"
the chairman of VoteVets, Iraq war veteran Jon Soltz, said in a
statement. "The success or failure of this bill largely rests on his
shoulders. He is the de facto leader of the Republican Party. If he
signs onto the bill, it will pass and become law. If he doesn't sup****t
it, he needs to explain why he doesn't."
McCain's silence on the GI Bill may surprise some observers, given the
senator's six years behind bars as a former prisoner of war in North
Vietnam. On the campaign trail, McCain speaks almost daily about
"sup****ting the troops."
But organizations that have followed the senator's voting record have
noted that McCain's actions are rarely in line with the interests of
veterans' organizations. In 2006, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of
America gave Senator McCain a failing grade of "D" based on his voting
record.
The same year, McCain sup****ted the interests of the Disabled American
Veterans just 20 percent of the time. The main reason for the low scores
is a consistent pattern by Senator McCain of voting against
appropriating money for veterans' health care and disability payments.
According to Disabled American Veterans, McCain voted almost a dozen
separate times against spending additional money on veterans' health
care in 2005 and 2006, even as hundreds of thousands of soldiers and
Marines were returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and filing disability
claims with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
During that time, McCain voted against expanding mental health care and
readjustment counseling for returning service members, efforts to expand
inpatient and outpatient treatment for injured veterans, and proposals
to lower co-payments and enrollment fees veterans must pay to obtain
prescription drugs.
"There was an effort to increase the budget for veterans' health care
beyond what President [George W.] Bush had requested as part of his
budget," Disabled American Veterans spokesperson Dave Autry said. "The
idea was to increase funding for veterans' health care by cutting back
on tax breaks for the wealthy. The proposals were pushed by Democrats
and opposed by Republicans in almost straight party-line votes."
McCain's vote also helped defeat a proposal by Democratic Senator Debbie
Stabenow that would have made veterans' health care an entitlement
program like social security, so that medical care would not become a
political football to be argued over in Congress each budget cycle.
"The budget and appropriations process for veterans has been late the
majority of the time the last 20 years and the funding proposed by the
president is almost always insufficient," Autry said. "As a result, the
VA could not plan for the number of returning veterans and staff the
medical centers based on the likely demand. So we tried to make the
funding sufficient, timely and predictable. If the Stabenow bill had
passed, it would have been a big step in that direction."
Like the other funding bills, the Stabenow bill failed on a virtual
party-line vote with John McCain voting against the veterans. According
to Autry, virtually every single initiative to sup****t veterans was
defeated in Congress until the Democrats took control of both houses in
January 2007.
McCain's Democratic rivals for president, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton, both sup****t the bipartisan effort to improve the GI Bill. In
2006, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America gave Obama a B+ and
Clinton an A-. Obama and Clinton both voted with the interest of
Disabled American Veterans 80 percent of the time.
How do you feel about this issue?
Let your public officials know how you feel.
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© Copyright 2008 Inter Press Service. All rights reserved. This material
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