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미국 재향군인회 (미국 단체) [美國在鄕軍人會, American Legion]
The G.I. Bill (officially titled Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, PL345) provided for college or vocational education for returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as GIs or G.I.s) as well as one year of unemployment compensation. It also provided loans for returning veterans to buy homes and start businesses.
Largely written and proposed as an omnibus bill by Warren Atherton (1891-1976), the G.I. Bill is considered, by Andrew Buskey, to be the last piece of New Deal legislation. However, the bill which President Franklin D. Roosevelt initially proposed was not as far reaching. The G.I. Bill was created to prevent a repeat of the Bonus March of 1932 and a relapse into the Great Depression after World War II ended. The American Legion (a veterans group) is essentially responsible for many of the bill's provisions. The Legion, led by Atherton, managed to have the bill apply to all who served in the armed services, including African-Americans and women.
Congress failed to include merchant marine veterans in the G.I. Bill even though they are considered military personnel in times of war in accordance with the Merchant Marine Act of 1936. Merchant mariners took higher casualties than many military units (1 in 24 perished of the 215,000 who served). [1] Now that the youngest veterans are in their 80's there are efforts to finally recognize their contributions by giving some benefits to the remaining survivors. There is a pending bill in Congress. As he signed the GI Bill in June 1944 President Roosevelt said: "I trust Congress will soon provide similar opportunities to members of the merchant marine who have risked their lives time and time again during war for the welfare of their country."
The fact that the G.I. Bill paid for a G.I.'s entire education had encouraged many universities across the country to expand enrollment. For example, prior to the war the University of Michigan had fewer than 10,000 students. By 1948 its enrollment was well over 30,000. Syracuse University also embraced the spirit of the Bill and saw its enrollment skyrocket from approximately 6,000 before the war to 19,000 students in 1947.
Another provision was known as the 52–20 clause. This enabled all former servicemen to receive $20 once a week for 52 weeks a year while they were looking for work. Less than 20 percent of the money set aside for the 52–20 Club (as it was known) was distributed. Rather, most returning servicemen quickly found jobs or pursued higher education.
An important provision of the G.I. Bill was low interest, zero down payment home loans for servicemen. This enabled millions of American families to move out of urban apartments and into suburban homes. Prior to the war the suburbs tended to be the homes of the wealthy and upper class. Although black servicemen were eligible for these loans they were prevented from leaving the inner cities or rural areas because many suburban communities, and real estate brokers used redlining and other racial segregation techniques to not sell homes to African-Americans and other minorities.
The 1944 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, or G.I. Bill of Rights, attracts universal praise as one of the most significant pieces of social legislation of the twentieth century for its redeeming effects on both the national economy and its beneficiaries. Academics and politicians credit the benefits offered by the bill with forestalling a widely feared post-World War II economic depression, expanding the home-owning middle class, and forever changing the nature of higher education in the United States. A cursory look at the available statistics reveals that these later bills had an enormous influence on the lives of returning veterans, higher education, and the economy. A far greater percentage of Vietnam veterans used G.I. Bill education benefits (72 percent) than World War II veterans (51 percent) or Korean Conflict veterans (43 percent). The government poured over 38.5 billion dollars into higher education under the Vietnam-era bills, almost two-and-a-half times the cost of the World War II G.I. Bill (when adjusted for inflation). Moreover, because of the ongoing military draft from 1940 to 1973, as many as one third of the population (when both veterans and their dependents are taken into account) could potentially have benefited from the elaborate and generous welfare system created by the expansion of veterans’ benefits.
The obvious success of the 1944 G.I. Bill prompted the government to offer similar measures to later generations of veterans. The Veterans’ Adjustment Act of 1952, signed into law on July 16, 1952 offered benefits to veterans of the Korean Conflict that served for more than 90 days and had received an “other than dishonorable discharge.” Korean Conflict veterans did not receive unemployment compensation but did receive similar educational and loan benefits as their World War II predecessors. Korean Conflict veterans were eligible for funding equal to a period 1.5 times their duration of service. One significant difference between the 1944 G.I. Bill and the 1952 Act was that tuition was no longer paid directly to the chosen institution of higher education. Instead, veterans received a fixed monthly sum of $110 from which they had to pay for their tuition, fees, books, and living expenses. The decision to abort direct tuition payments to schools came after a 1950 House select committee uncovered incidents of overcharging of tuition rates by some institutions under the original G.I. Bill in an attempt to defraud the government. Although the monthly stipend proved sufficient for most Korean conflict veterans, this decision would have negative repercussions for later veterans. By the end of the program on January 31, 1965 approximately 2.4 million of 5.5 million eligible veterans had used their benefits. Roughly 1.2 million had used them to enter higher education, over 860,000 for other education purposes, and 318,000 for occupational training. Over 1.5 million Korean Conflict veterans obtained home loans.
Whereas the G.I. Bills of 1944 and 1952 were given to compensate veterans for wartime service, the Veterans Readjustment Benefits Act of 1966 forever changed the nature of military service in America by extending benefits to veterans who served during times of war and peace. At first there was some opposition to the concept of a peacetime G.I. Bill. President Dwight Eisenhower had rejected such a measure in 1959 after the Bradley commission concluded that military service should be “an obligation of citizenship, not a basis for government benefits.” President Lyndon B. Johnson believed that many of his “Great Society” social programs negated the need for sweeping veterans benefits. But, prompted by unanimous support given the bill by Congress, Johnson signed it into law on March 3, 1966.
Almost immediately critics within the veterans’ community and on Capitol Hill charged that the bill did not go far enough. At first, single veterans who had served more than 180 days and had received an “other than dishonorable discharge” received only $100 a month from which they had to pay for tuition and all of their expenses. Most found this amount to be insufficient. In particular, veterans who had endured the hardships of the Vietnam War recoiled at the government’s failure to provide them with the same generous educational opportunities as their World War II predecessors. Consequently, during the early years of the program, only about 25% of Vietnam veterans used their education benefits. But for the next decade, a battle raged in the government to increase veterans’ benefits. Congress succeeded, often in the face of fierce objections from the fiscally conservative Nixon and Ford Administrations, to raise benefit levels. In 1967, a single veteran’s benefits were raised to $130 a month; in 1970 they rose to $175; under the Readjustment Assistance Act of 1972 the monthly allowance rose to $220; in 1974 it rose to $270, $292 in 1976, and then $311 a month in 1977.
As the funding levels increased, the numbers of veterans entering higher education rose correspondingly. Indeed, it was not until 1976, fully ten years after the first veterans became eligible, that the highest number of Vietnam-era veterans were enrolled in colleges and universities. By the end of the program, proportionally more Vietnam-era veterans (6.8 million out of 10.3 million eligible) had used their benefits for higher education than any previous generation of veterans. And contrary to the popular stereotypes of the Vietnam veteran, most who served in Vietnam used their benefits to construct productive and successful lives after service. Education benefits during the Vietnam era did not have the same impact on higher education as the original 1944 Bill because higher education had become much more commonplace in America. But the G.I. Bills of this period did have a similarly positive impact on the lives of the beneficiaries.
Despite the movement to an all-volunteer force in 1973, veterans continued to receive benefits, in part as an inducement to enlist, under the Veterans Educational Assistance Program (VEAP), and the Montgomery G.I. Bill (MGIB). From December 1976 through 1987, veterans received assistance under the VEAP. The VEAP departed from previous programs by requiring participants to make a contribution to their education benefits. The VA then matched their contributions at a rate of 2 to 1. Enlisted personnel could contribute up to $100 a month up to a maximum of $2700. Benefits could be claimed for up to 36 months. To be eligible, a veteran had to have served for more than 180 days and received an “other than dishonorable discharge.” Nearly 700,000 veterans used their benefits for education and training under this program. The MGIB replaced the VEAP for those who served after July 1, 1985. This was an entirely voluntary program in which participants could choose to have $100 per month deducted from their first year of pay. In return, veterans receive a generous tuition allowance and a monthly stipend for up to 36 months of training or education.