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WASHINGTON, July 28, 2008 – The latest GI Bill considerably improves the opportunity for today’s servicemembers to obtain their education, a senior Defense Department official said. President Bush signed the Post-9/11 Veterans Education Assistance Act of 2008 on June 30. The new law mirrors the tenets of the original GI Bill, which gave returning World War II veterans the opportunity to go to any school they wanted while receiving a living stipend, Bob Clark, the Pentagon’s assistant director of accessions policy, said. “The original GI Bill was said to be one of the most significant social impacts of the...

With the Post-9/11 Veterans Education Assistance Act of 2008 signed into law June 30, military members and veterans crave information on whether, when and how they will gain access to the richer education package, known also as the Webb GI Bill or the Webb-Hagel GI Bill. Keith M. Wilson, director of education service for the Veterans Benefits Administration, gave refreshingly direct and detailed answers during a Military Update interview July 2. Wilson said the VA also has a pamphlet on the new GI Bill posted at its website, www.gibill.va.gov, and a toll free number, 1-888-GIBILL1, for follow-up questions. Here are...

WASHINGTON - President Bush today signed legislation ushering in a new era in GI Bill benefits. The legislation, which the Senate last week passed overwhelmingly, is part of a $162 billion war spending bill. "We are very excited that after 18 months of working on the GI Bill that it's been passed into law," said Patrick Campbell, legislative director for IAVA. "Now veterans everywhere will see their opportunities greatly expanded." The administration has opposed the new GI Bill on the grounds it would be too expensive, while the Pentagon has been concerned the more generous benefits - including a free...

Lately I've emailing anyone on Capitol Hill who will listen about the new GI Bill that should be going to the President for signature as part of the defense funding package. While this bill goes a long way towards addressing a shortfall in educational benefits for military members, it doesn't do enough for older veterans like myself who have not served since 9/11. I can't post the comparison chart for everyone to see because I don't know how so I included the URL above for everyone to click on, but I wanted to know your take on the matter. The...

President Bush made a statement this morning on the recent bill passed by Congress. (Transcript) Yesterday the House passed a responsible war funding bill that will provide vital resources to our men and women on the front lines in the war on terror. This legislation gives our troops the funds they need to prevail without tying the hands of our commanders in the field or imposing artificial timetables for withdrawal. Congress is also very close to granting retroactive immunity to phone companies who help (and have helped) intelligence agencies monitor foreign terror suspects—something that Democrats have vehemently opposed. It will...

"This is a different kind of war." --Representative Harry Mitchell Student-Veterans Come Marching Home: A New GI Bill for Scientists Alan Kotok United States 6 June 2008 Since World War II, the U.S. government has offered education benefits to veterans through a series of "GI Bills" both as an incentive to encourage military enlistment and as a "gesture of gratitude" to young men and women who serve in the military. But, since the WWII era, these benefits have failed to keep up with the increasing cost of higher education. A new bill--it has passed both houses of Congress but...

WASHINGTON - After promising to veto a huge Iraq war-funding bill because it contains unrelated domestic spending, the White House now wants to boost the costs even higher by letting troops transfer ramped up GI Bill education benefits to their spouses or children. The White House is signaling that President Bush could sign the hotly contested and long overdue war funding bill if the benefit transferability provision is added to the 10-year, $52 billion improvement to GI Bill college benefits proposed by Democrats and many Republicans. "It's like the Yogi Berra story: 'I don't like that restaurant. Besides, the portions...

You can measure the continuing power shift in Washington by looking at the costly package of veterans’ benefits sponsored by James Webb, the Virginia senator elected on an anti-Iraq war platform in 2006. President George W. Bush has promised to veto the measure. The scene is set for a showdown and Mr Bush is set to lose it. Over Memorial day, the editorial pages of US dailies backed Mr Webb’s bill as the least the country could do for soldiers who have sacrificed so much. A majority of Republican senators joined Mr Webb’s Democrats to render the bill veto-proof. John...

WASHINGTON, May 31, 2008 – With Congress preparing to return from its Memorial Day recess, President Bush used his weekly radio address this morning to urge lawmakers to pass various pieces of pending legislation. Here’s what the president had to say about two defense-related issues: War funding: “Congress needs to pass a responsible war funding bill that puts the needs of our troops first, without loading it up with unrelated domestic spending. Our troops in Afghanistan are performing with courage and honor, delivering blows to the Taliban and al-Qaida. Our troops in Iraq have driven al-Qaida and other extremists...

Traduce: v.t.; to cause humiliation or disgrace to by making malicious and false statements; to make defamatory statements about: asperse, backbite, calumniate, defame, malign, slander, slur, tear down, vilify. It's a vile word. It combines slander and vilification, the essence of what the Bible calls "bearing false witness." A traducer is a person without a conscience, without a chest; a hollow, soulless spirit. Stitching together the worst segments of a harpy and a demon, traducers are sociopaths who literally feel absolutely nothing for their fellow men and women but contempt. They are unable to conceive of other human beings as...

President Bush opposes a new G.I. Bill of Rights. He worries that if the traditional path to college for service members since World War II is improved and expanded for the post-9/11 generation, too many people will take it. He is wrong, but at least he is consistent. Having saddled the military with a botched, unwinnable war, having squandered soldiers’ lives and failed them in so many ways, the commander in chief now resists giving the troops a chance at better futures out of uniform. He does this on the ground that the bill is too generous and may discourage...

Several days ago, on one of the Fox News nonprimes (possibly the Kelly/Hemmer 5:00 election show), a brand new Obama-declared super-delegate (sorry, I didn't get her name or state!) announced in answer to a question about BO's elitism that he could hardly be considered elite because he went through Columbia & Harvard on the G. I. Bill. This wasn't challenged. I've found no reference to BO's military service anywhere, nor can I imagine how the G. I. Bill could have helped him otherwise.

Let's say you're a young person working for a large, well respected corporation with a very pronounced global presence and an acute need for an increased workforce. Your job is difficult, but also very personally fulfilling. Despite the fact that you love your job, you find yourself thinking about moving on. Sensing this, your boss comes to you and says: "I hear you're thinking about quitting. We really value your work and we need you to stay. It's hard to find qualified employees like yourself so we'd definitely like it if you stayed on. But, just so you're aware, if...

Washington - Vietnam War veteran Sen. John McCain calls the American GI bill that gave a generation of soldiers an opportunity to receive an education "one of the greatest things about the 20th century." But he disagrees with prominent colleagues about how and how much those benefits should now be expanded for a new crop of veterans. Senator McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, wants to expand the GI bill but his differences with Sen. James Webb (D) of Virginia, who has been pushing for new legislation for months, reflects the growing tension over how to help veterans returning...

Virginia Senator Jim Webb says there's growing support for his G.I. Bill. The bill would pay the college tuition for many military veterans who have served since the 9/11 terror attacks. The Bush administration and defense department have concerns. They say the costly bill could also cost the military when it comes to re-enlistment rates. On the grounds of the College of William & Mary, Army Veteran Corporal Harry Bethke talks about his future. "I sent out all these applications, all at once and I got approved for 7 out of 9." He says the campus is a stark contrast...

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) is calling on presumptive GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) to sign on as a co-sponsor to his GI bill, which would improve educational benefits to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “McCain needs to get on the bill,” Webb told reporters after a Christian Science Monitor breakfast meeting on Wednesday. He said legislation mirroring the post-World War II GI bill should not be considered a “political issue.” Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Il.), the Democratic presidential candidates, both have signed on to the bill. In a major coup for...

Some columns write themselves. Some are a struggle and leave me confused, conflicted and a little angry. This is one of those. It started out as a tongue-in-cheek look at the recent action by the city council in Berkeley, Calif., to oust the U.S. Marine Corps recruiting office and brand the Marines “uninvited and unwelcome intruders.” I planned to compare the situation in that strange city with our fairly-liberal-but-not-ridiculously-so approach here in Corvallis. Then I started doing research. I learned that an anti-military organization has access to our high school students equal to that of the U.S. Armed Forces. The...

MEMBERS of Congress and other political leaders often say that the men and women who have served in our military since 9/11 are the “new greatest generation.” Well, here’s a thought from two infantry combat veterans of the Vietnam era’s “wounded generation”: if you truly believe that our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are like those who fought in World War II, let us provide them with the same G.I. Bill that was given to the veterans of that war. In terms of providing true opportunity, the World War II G.I. Bill was one of the most important pieces of legislation...

Iraq vets say Pentagon is denying benefits When they came home from Iraq, 2,600 members of the Minnesota National Guard had been deployed longer than any other ground combat unit. The tour lasted 22 months and had been extended as part of President Bush's surge. And 1st Lt. Jon Anderson says he never expected to come home to this: A government refusing to pay education benefits he says he should have earned under the GI bill. "It's pretty much a slap in the face," Anderson said. "I think it was a scheme to save money, personally. I think it was...

WASHINGTON - More than a year ago, Congress passed a law giving extra college money to as many as 175,000 veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan and other actions in the war on terrorism. Specifically targeting activated members of the reserves and National Guard, the benefit is worth as much at $827 a month. But as a second Veterans Day goes by, not a single check has been mailed and most reservists haven't even applied for it. The program remains in bureaucratic limbo. The Department of Defense is still creating a database of eligible veterans that the Department of Veterans Affairs needs...

The Veterans Benefits Act of 2004, was signed by the President on December 10, 2004. This new law makes some significant changes to the Veterans Home Loan Guaranty Program. The Veteran's Benefit Act of 2004 includes the following changes to the VA Home Loan Program: Increases the maximum loan amount to $359,650 Expands the eligibility for Specially Adapted Housing Grants. Re-instates the Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) Program Expands the eligibility for waiving the VA Funding Fee Increased Maximum Guaranty Amount The law changes the maximum guaranty amount of $240,000 to a new limit for a single family residence of $359,650....

Get an Education Jump Start! Like many veterans, you have probably avoided going to college because you feel you lack the needed academic skills. After all, it's been years since you went to school. Thanks to the Veterans Upward Bound (VUB) Program you don't have to let your rusty academic skills keep you from getting your degree and pursuing the career of your dreams. Veterans Upward Bound is a free U.S. Department of Education program designed to help you refresh your academic skills and give you the confidence you need to successfully complete your choice of college degrees.

...Mr. Bush... has called... for personal retirement accounts in Social Security. His opponent John Kerry, the darling of the self-regarding intelligentsia, called for the brain-dead policy of no change in a Social Security regime that any sensible person understands is in the long run unsustainable. Mr. Bush wants something better. Mr. Bush has also called for an expansion of market-based health-care reforms like health savings accounts. And he has called, in exceedingly vague terms, for broad-based tax reforms, freeing up savings from taxes to encourage investment and wealth accumulation. ...Mr. Bush... has risked giving his policy proposals too little political...

WASHINGTON, June 22, 2004 – Times were tough. The nation was slowly emerging from the Great Depression when World War II flared up in 1941. Before the war, the unemployment rate hovered at 15 percent, more than 11 million homes didn't have running water or electricity, and fewer than 50,000 taxpayers earned more than $2,500 a year, according to Census Bureau statistics. After the war, thousands of Americans were flocking to colleges and vocational schools, buying homes, farms and businesses – all thanks to the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, which became known simply as the GI Bill. President Franklin...

U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. We hope to provide an ongoing source of information about issues and problems that are specific to Veterans and resources that are available to Veterans and their families. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood...

The Fourth of July is quickly approaching and no doubt an exuberant display of patriotism will be part of this first Independence Day since the tragedy of Sept. 11. The huge American flags will not have to be dug out of mothballs; they’ve been flying proud since September. The “God Bless America” bumper stickers are already in place on the pickups, and the red, white and blue “Proud to be an American” T-shirts have been broken in for months. But Tim, a 39-year-old staff sergeant in the Army Reserve, thought he’d be celebrating the Fourth in his new house –...