This is “Sonny:” Honorable Bill Cohen
Senator Cohen acknowledged Montgomery’s vision and leadership in a letter to G.V. Montgomery on May 6, 1987, saying,“You can take great pride in what you have done to make what many considered the impossible a reality.” Further, in a May 15, 1987, letter Senator Cohen said,“This legislation is a lasting monument to you, your persistence, and your commitment to the young men and women serving in our armed forces.” Letters accessed from House Committee on Veterans’Affairs (HCVA) Internal Historical File on the Montgomery GI Bill.As an internal, working file and not one intended to be archived, the files/folders are not uniformly numbered or titled, nor are the contents of the files itemized by subject. However, the contents of the files generally are aggregated by year.The authors do not repeat this caveat in further notes.
Mr. Montgomery used the words politics and possibilities in referring to the longstanding chief counsel and staff director of the House Committee on Veterans’Affairs, Mack G. Fleming, as well:“His [Mr. Fleming’s] was the deep commitment of the true believer tempered by a unique practical sense of political possibilities and opportunities.” See Congressional Record, April 16, 1985, E823.“Politics is the art of the possible” is attributed to Otto Von Bismarck (1815-1898), first chancellor of Germany. See The Quotations Page,“Quotations by Author Otto Von Bismarck” at http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Otto_von_Bismarck; (accessed May 11, 2007).
For additional information on the lifetime public service of Sonny Montgomery, see Mississippi State University,“Salute to a Patriot: G.V. Sonny Montgomery,” http://msuinfo.ur.msstate.edu/alumni/sonny/salutetoapatriot; (accessed March 22, 2006).
Military.com,“Advocate for America’s Vets Dies,” May 15, 2009, www.military.com/NewsContent/0, 13319, 97216.00.html; (accessed October 6, 2009).
Michael B. Ballard and Craig S. Piper, Sonny Montgomery:The Veteran’s Champion (Mississippi State University Libraries: University Press of Mississippi, 2003), 62.
Light-hearted humor often characterized the friendship of George H.W. Bush and G.V. Montgomery. For example, at a September 18, 1996, farewell salute in honor of Montgomery’s 30 years in Congress, both former President Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush told stories:“George Bush delighted the audience with tales of Montgomery’s visits to Bush family Thanksgiving dinners at Camp David—especially when he noted that Sonny’s blessings before the meals were lengthy in the extreme. Commenting on Montgomery’s attire for the [farewell salute] evening, which included his extensive military decorations on the pocket of his tuxedo and the Medal of Freedom he recently won around his neck, Bush quipped: ‘I almost didn’t recognize Sonny tonight, I thought he was one of those Latin American dictators.’ Barbara Bush stole the hearts of East Central Mississippians who have passed the gargantuan sign designating Meridian’s G.V. Montgomery National Guard Complex on Interstate 20 for [many] years when she recounted the story of accompanying her husband to the facility’s dedication: ‘When we arrived, George leaned over to me and whispered,‘We really didn’t have to come to this, we could have seen the sign from the White House lawn,’ Mrs. Bush said to gales of laughter from Montgomery’s Meridian area friends.” See “Sharing a Laugh with Sonny,” Starkville Daily News, September 18, 1996, page number not evident on photocopy. President Bush reportedly has also needled his friend Montgomery by saying, “There are only two things on earth visible from outer space:The Great Wall of China and the sign that says ‘G.V. Montgomery National Guard Complex.’”
Mississippi State University,“Salute to a Patriot: G.V.‘Sonny’ Montgomery,” http://msuinfo.ur.msstate.edu/alumni/sonny/salute/salute9.htm. Also,“When Sonny was elected to Congress in 1966, American soldiers were fighting in the war in Vietnam. He demonstrated his concern for those who were involved in that dangerous and deadly region by spending Christmas in Vietnam each year with the soldiers. On these trips, Sonny would carry blank cards with him, and when he ran into young soldiers from Mississippi, he would ask them to write the names and addresses of their families on these cards.When Sonny returned home he would take the time to call each soldier’s family to let them know he had seen their son or daughter and relay any stories or news that might interest them. Today, people still thank Sonny for those calls.” Ballard and Piper, Sonny Montgomery:The Veteran’s Champion, 197.
Congressional Record, May 8, 1987, S6209. See also Congressional Record, November 16, 1979, S16896-S16898 for Mr. Cohen’s introductory statement on S. 2020 that would create a non-contributory New GI Bill. Senator Cohen testified on S. 2020 and Senator Armstrong on S. 2596 in the Senate Committee on Veterans’Affairs, June 19, 1980, chaired by Senator Cranston.The hearing’s topic was Educational Incentives and the All-Volunteer Force.
Ibid.
For additional information about William S. Cohen, see The Cohen Group, http://www.cohengroup.net.
Ibid., 9.
Mr. Cohen’s Congressional papers and his papers as Secretary of Defense are housed at the University of Maine’s Fogler Library.The University also houses the William S. Cohen Center for International Policy and Commerce. See http://www.umaine.edu/cohen/default.html.
Congressional Record, May 8, 1987, S6209. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton also used the broad concept of “journey” in referring to the outcome of The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944.At a June 5, 1990, ceremony honoring the GI Bill, President Bush said,“The [World War II] GI Bill changed the lives of millions by replacing old road blocks with paths of opportunity.And, in so doing, it boosted America’s work force, it boosted America’s economy, and really, it changed the life of our nation.”Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Administration of George Bush, 1990 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1991, 777 of Book I.) In a June 22, 1994, ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the GI Bill of Rights, President Clinton said,“The veterans of World War I got… $60 and a train ticket home.The veterans of World War II got a ticket to the American dream.” See Public Papers of Presidents of the United States, Administration of William J. Clinton, 1994 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1994, 1103 of Book I).Also, in a February 4, 1997, address before a joint session of the Congress on the State of the Union, President Clinton again referenced the GI Bill and the journey metaphor:“We must expand the frontiers of learning across a lifetime; all our people, of whatever age, must have the chance to learn new skills. Most Americans live near a community college.The roads that take them there can be paths to a better future. My GI Bill for America’s workers will transform the confusing tangle of federal training programs into a simple skill grant to go directly into eligible worker’s hands.” Public Papers of Presidents, William J. Clinton, 1997, 112.
Andrew Carnegie, “[Teamwork] is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.”
Congressional Record, March 17, 1987, H1302. Noted Mr. Montgomery, “Mr. Speaker, let me first thank the many people in this chamber for making this day possible.This was a team effort and so many deserve credit for this historic bill.” [emphasis added].Additionally, at H1313, Mr. Montgomery said, “I do appreciate the wonderful, kind things that have been said here today. It is really not me, it has been a team effort totally.” [emphasis added]. Lastly, at H1318, Montgomery said, “There are many, many members of the House of Representatives and other laymen who have participated and made the bill possible. It is not one individual’s efforts.As I keep repeating, it has been a team effort all the way.”
“Military personnel groups” are civilian organizations that represent active duty, Reserve, or retired military persons. Some examples include the Association of the U.S. Army, Navy League, Fleet Reserve Association, Air Force Association, the Marine Corps League, the Non Commissioned Officers Association of the United States, the Military Officers Association of America, National Guard Association, Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States, and Reserve Officers Association.
Nineteen was the uniform age at which young men were drafted at the time through the United States Selective Service System. From August 1964 until February 1973, the United States drafted 1, 857, 304 young men into military service. Selective Service System, “History & Records,” http://www.sss.gov/induct.html; (accessed May 7, 2007).
The authors document this statement in Chapters 15, 16, and 17.
VEAP took effect on January 1, 1977, enacted as Public Law 94-502. VEAP was a five-year pilot program. The Montgomery GI Bill (MGIB) took effect as a permanent program on June 1, 1987, enacted as Public Law 100-48. Neither VEAP nor MGIB were enacted as “war-time” legislation that would inactivate at a war’s conclusion. The MGIB was the single, ongoing permanent program from 1987 until 2008 when Congress also created the Post-9/11 GI Bill in Public Law 100-252, which took effect August 1, 2009.
Memorandum from Ted Van Hintum, assistant director for program management, Education Service, Department of Veterans Affairs, April 17, 2007, 1. Memorandum in possession of Mississippi State University.
The World War II GI Bill: The Legacy Begins
The characters listed at the beginning of each chapter primarily are those who played a role at the time the events portrayed in the chapter took place. However, the authors include more modern-day figures here, too, when such persons can offer insight. For example, among others in this chapter, the authors include the Honorable Anthony Principi, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, 2001-2005.
“New GI Bill Would Repay Nation’s ‘Freedom Debt,’” Stamford (CT) Advocate, July 8, 2003. Similar articles appeared in the Fredericksburg (VA) Free Lance Star on July 5 and the Victorville (CA) Press Dispatch on July 6. Articles are (1) provided by Burrelles Information Service; (2) furnished to the authors by the late Michael G. Bennett; and (3) in possession of Mississippi State University.
Dwight Young, ed., Dear Mr. President: Letters to the Oval Office from the Files of the National Archives (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2006), 75. Many of the American men who were called to arms were drafted. “America’s first national military conscription law was enacted in 1862, but it wasn’t until World War I that the U.S. relied primarily on the draft to build and maintain its armed forces. The fall of France in 1940 spurred Congress to adopt the first peacetime draft, calling up men aged 21 to 35 for a one-year hitch. Just a year later, with the threat of war looming bigger every day, Congress voted—by a one-vote margin in the House of Representatives—to keep draftees in uniform beyond the end of their one-year term. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, all able-bodied men aged 18 to 38 were subject to conscription for the duration of the war…. The peak year for conscription, [was 1943] when more than 3.3 million men were drafted…. Almost 10 million men were drafted from 1940 through 1945.”
In a broad sense, Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen suggest the 45,000 World War I veterans who descended on Washington, D.C. during the summer of 1932 planted the seeds that created the 1944 World War II GI Bill of Rights. Dickson and Allen note the “Bonus Army” soldiers “demanded immediate payment of a cash bonus promised them eight years earlier for their wartime service.” The ex-soldiers lived in shanty towns and rallied nearly for two months: “On July 28, 1932, going beyond presidential orders, Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur drove the veterans out of the city with tanks, tear gas, and soldiers wielding bayonet-tipped rifles.” Dickson and Allen further note “the bonus was finally paid in 1936 when Congress overruled [Franklin Roosevelt’s] fourth veto. But the Bonus Army legacy came in 1944 when Congress passed the GI Bill of Rights…” Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen, The Bonus Army: An American Epic (New York: Walker and Company, 2004), 266-277 and the book’s inside cover. For an additional description of these Depression-era veterans who in 1932 formed the Bonus Expeditionary Force [“Bonus Army”] to lobby Congress, see U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, The Veterans Benefits Administration: An Organizational History: 1776-1994, November 1995, 21-22. Lastly, Janet Maslin observes “for all the defeats that the Bonus Army endured, its struggle paved the way for the GI Bill of Rights.” See “Home from the War, Yet the Battle is Just Beginning,” New York Times, February 21, 2005.
Milton Greenberg, The GI Bill:The Law That Changed America (New York: Lickle Publishing, 1997), 12. In Chapter 11 of this Montgomery text, Professor Charles Moskos similarly refers to the GI Bill as “valuable in terms of name recognition and positive symbolism….” “The words GI Bill signify commitment to enhancement of the citizen soldier even in an all-volunteer format.” We note Milton Greenberg, is professor emeritus of government at The American University, Washington, D.C., where he served as provost and interim president. We cite below other instructive publications Dr. Greenberg has authored on the GI Bill. First, he served as guest editor of a special fall, 1994 issue of the American Council on Education Magazine, Educational Record, titled “The GI Bill’s Lasting Legacy,” on the bill’s 50th anniversary. We cite the Educational Record herein at Chapter 2 notes 19 and 55, note 6 of Chapter 3, and note 15 of chapter 5. Second, Dr. Greenberg authored an article “How the GI Bill Changed Higher Education,” published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 18, 2004, which commemorates the 60th anniversary of the GI Bill. Third, his article “The New GI Bill Is No Match for the Original,” published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 25, 2008, compares the new and older versions of the historic legislation. And fourth, his chapter titled “The GI Bill of Rights: Changing the Social, Economic Landscape of the United States” is part of the U.S. Department of State book, Historians on America, April 3, 2008. The book discusses 11 “tipping points” in American history.
The Bill of Rights is the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution containing guarantees of essential rights and liberties. Library of Congress, “Primary Documents in American History,” http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/billofrights.html; (accessed May 9, 2007).
The authors use the words Army and soldiers frequently throughout the text of this book. Instructive is the manner by which Army leaders refer to the everyday soldiers who represent the heart of the Army. Four examples are as follows. First, noted Chief of Staff of the Army General Creighton Abrams, Jr., “People are not in the Army, they are the Army.” [emphasis added]. Creighton Abrams, “From Agawam to Chief of Staff,” Washington Post, September 5, 1974. Second, observed Abrams, “We are, at root, an Army of people, not of machines nor policies, nor structures.” Abrams, “Emphasis Is on Readiness,” Army, October 1974, 9. Third, noted Abrams, “By people I do not mean personnel…. I mean living, breathing, serving, human beings.” See Lieutenant General Harris Hollis, U.S. (Ret), “The Heart and Mind of Creighton Abrams,” Military Review LXV, no. 4 (April 1985): 63. Fourth, observed recent Chief of Staff of the Army (2003-2007) General Peter Shoomaker, “Humans are more important than hardware. We must always remember that soldiers are the Army.” [emphasis added]. Shoomaker in the West Point Society of the District of Columbia, “CSA Remarks of October 7, 2003, to Association of U.S. Army at Eisenhower Luncheon,” furnished to co-author, Darryl Kehrer, by Keith Fulk, USMA 1976, October 11, 2003.
Information about American veterans of both World War I and II and subsequent military conflicts is available through the Veterans History Project (VHP) at the Library of Congress. The VHP mission is to collect and archive the personal recollections of U.S. wartime veterans to honor their service and share their stories with current and future generations. The VHP also collects stories from home front civilians who worked in support of our armed forces. Donated collections take the form of war veterans’ firsthand oral histories, memoirs, photographs, letters, diaries, official separation documents, and other historical documents from World War I through current conflicts. Next-of-kin may furnish information on deceased veterans, as well.
Greenberg, The GI Bill, 12: “In a legendary effort, he drafted the essence of the law on the back of hotel stationary in room 507 of the Mayflower Hotel.” Also, see Michael J. Bennett, When Dreams Came True—The GI Bill and the Making of Modern America (Washington, London: Brassey’s, 1996.) Notes Bennett at 135: “Writing the bill—as Colmery did in Suite 570 of the Mayflower Hotel—was the first essential step toward passage, ‘No one alive knows how long it took him to write—in longhand and on hotel stationary—the first draft of what would become introduced as the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944,’ The American Legion Magazine of June 1984 reported.” Greenberg cites room 507, and Bennett cites 570. The engraved plaque commemorating the bill’s historic drafting resides in room 570.
Greenberg, The GI Bill, 11. In July 1943, President Roosevelt spoke to the nation: “Veterans must not be mobilized into an environment of inflation and unemployment, to a place on a bread line or on a corner selling apples. We must this time have plans ready.”
Testifying before the House Committee on World War Veterans Legislation on March 29, 1944, Mr. Colmery observed in three statements: in the first at 396 of the 1944 hearing record on H. R. 3917 and S. 1767, “Bridging of the gap between actual separation and the getting of them back into gainful employment or education, the idea is to see that the veteran is not penalized by reason of his service, and that he is given a fair break toward getting to the position where otherwise he would have been, through, first, education; and second, in the field of employment—job counseling and an opportunity to get back into gainful employment; third, through the various provisions in Title IV; and then lastly, through a readjustment allowance section, as we call it;” in the second statement at 399 of the same hearing record, Mr. Colmery says, “In the matter of employment—economic freedom, the opportunity to earn a competent livelihood for one’s self and those dependent upon him, is the very cornerstone of all freedoms. Without them [our] civil, political, and religious liberties are just mere sales talk;” in the third statement at 400 of the same hearing record, Mr. Colmery says, “For the period of reconversion of industry back to peace-time operation, the absorption of ten or more million [former service members] into pursuit of commerce and industry, the reshifting of many more, both geographically and occupation-wise, the personal dislocation which will create individual problems of adaptability, mental and physical readjustment, and recharting of courses in life—all will create uncertainties and a great potential of anxiety, despair, [and] suffering want, which may be devastating to individual and community life and stability.” House Committee on World War Veterans Legislation, Hearings on H.R. 3917 and S. 1767 to Provide Federal Government Aid For the Readjustment in Civilian Life of Returning World War II Veterans, January 11, 12, 13, 17, 18; February 24; March 9, 10, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 1944. Specifically, hearing of March 29, Testimony of Harry W. Colmery, past commander, The American Legion, 397-400. Documents are contained in the published “History of Veterans Laws; Public Laws 346, 78C, 483, 78C; Veterans Administration, Vol IX;” Tab PL 346, 78C; Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of General Counsel, Legislative Services Division, Washington, D.C.
Ibid., 397, 400. House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Committee Spotlight: GI Bill 60th Anniversary, “Statement of the Honorable Henry E. Brown, Jr. of South Carolina on Posthumously Awarding the Medal of Freedom to Harry W. Colmery.” July 6, 2004, as excerpted from the Congressional Record, http://veterans.house.gov/benefits/gi60th/hbrown.html; (accessed July 18, 2006). Sponsored primarily by Representative Jim Ryun of Kansas, the Colmery-Medal-of-Freedom legislation passed the House in 2004 but did not pass the Senate.
For information on House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs chairmen and chairwomen since World War II, see http://veterans.house.gov/about/history/pastchairmen.html. Also see endnote 21 in this chapter.
After World War II, through the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, Congress changed the name of the House Committee on World War Veterans’ Legislation to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. National Archives and Records Administration, Guide to the Records of the United States House of Representatives at the National Archives—1789-1989 Bicentennial Edition, Document No. 100-245, 100th Cong., 2nd sess., 1989, 269-271. For a discussion of the creation of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, see notes for Chapter 12.
Michael J. Bennett, When Dreams Came True: The GI Bill and the Making of Modern America (Washington, London: Brasseys, 1996), 113. Also, observed Representative Thomas G. Abernethy of Mississippi regarding Rankin: “No member of this or any preceding Congress has been more intently interested in the welfare of the veteran than the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Rankin]. For more than 20 years he has fought the battle of veterans on Capitol Hill. He still fights their battles. For his many achievements in their behalf I congratulate him…. In an effort to write the best possible bill, our committee has had this measure under consideration for several months. We have worked hard, unceasingly, and untiringly. For almost three weeks, immediately prior to its being reported out, we went over the bill, in executive session, line by line and paragraph by paragraph.” Abernethy statement excerpted from May 18, 1944, Congressional Record –Appendix at A2637.
Further, observed Representative Walter Granger of Utah, “I want to join my colleagues in expressing my sincere appreciation to the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Rankin], not only for his painstaking effort in the preparation of this bill, but for his long years of unselfish and devoted service given in the interest of veterans of other wars, especially the disabled and their dependents.” Congressional Record, May 12, 1944, 4531.
Ibid. Russell Whelan, “Rankin of Mississippi,” The Nation, July, 1944, quoted in Bennett, When Dreams Came True, 113.
Bennett, When Dreams Came True, 154.
Ibid.
The American Council on Education (ACE) and the 55 educational organizations it represented opposed what it perceived would be federal control of institutionally based education and training of veterans on numerous occasions during their public testimony. For example, see 121-123 of the published hearing transcript of the Committee on Education and Labor, United States Senate, December 13, 14, and 15, 1943, on S.1295 and S.1509 regarding The Servicemen’s Education and Training Act of 1944. The ACE also expressed such opposition at 308-310 and 313-317 of the published transcript of hearings held by the Committee on World War Veterans Legislation, House of Representatives, March 29, 1944; and at 130-131 of testimony before the Senate Finance Committee on February 11, 1944. The ACE wanted each state—not the federal Veterans Administration—to administer through federal funds what would become known as the GI Bill. Noted ACE President George F. Zook at the aforementioned 313, “In the allocation of powers to the federal government, education was not included, and the founders, therefore, of our republic had very seriously in mind that education was one of those powers which should be reserved to the states and to the people.” The ACE also wanted the U.S. Office of Education—rather than the Veterans Administration—to be the federal entity that coordinated the program with the states. Some of Dr. Zook’s explicit testimony took on a parochial—if not problematical—tone not evident in the testimony of other council member organizations. For example, at 122 of the published hearing transcript of hearings on the Veterans’ Omnibus Bill (S. 1617) before the Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, January 14, 15, 21, 24; February 11, 14, 23; March 8 and 10, 1944, Dr. Zook testified on January 14 that “The council has attempted to be familiar with this problem of the education of returning veterans….” [emphasis added]. Further, at the aforementioned 312, Dr. Zook observed that “we suggested that this group of 21 [education] organizations which were specifically interested in this problem [of education of returning veterans] might be brought together.” [emphasis added]. As early as 1942, Dr. Zook wrote “The executive committee… has authorized the appointment of two temporary committees—one to explore what possible action might be taken for education reconstruction in the United States, including the problem of the education of servicemembers after their period of service…” [emphasis added]. See [ACE] President’s Annual Report 1941-1942, p. 21, as cited in Educational Record, The Magazine of Higher Education, Fall 1994, “The GI Bill’s Lasting Legacy,” 19. In addition, Representative Walter H. Judd of Minnesota defended the view of the ACE: “The set-up for providing education and training for veterans as proposed in Title II of the GI Bill of Rights makes it possible for the Veterans Administration to exercise a control over the education of the veterans which certainly is not necessary to the success of the program and which cannot give the veteran any better service, and might give him a lot worse service than if the actual conduct of the program is through the state and local agencies of education already established, experienced, and operating efficiently.” Congressional Record-Appendix, May 10, 1944, A2463. Lastly, at the aforementioned 131, Senate Finance Committee Subcommittee on Veterans’ Legislation Chairman Bennett Champ Clark observed that “fundamentally, we are concerned about the interest of the veterans… and not the interests of your educational system. In other words, I am perfectly willing to utilize and expand the educational system and supply the money, but I say the administration ought to be in the hands of some federal agency who is interested primarily in the interests of the veteran rather than expanding the universities and colleges.”
Ibid., 160. Observed Chairman Rankin, “If the bill [S. 1767] passes in its present form [as approved by the Senate] agricultural high schools in the district which I represent will not be included. I would rather have a graduate of one of those high schools in my community than to have some of these sociology professors that I see come in here from what they call the higher educational institutions of the nation; because they [those who attend agricultural high schools] are the ones on whose shoulders rests the responsibility of sustaining the nation in time of peace and fighting its battles in time of war. I am afraid you are getting ready to make this thing top-heavy. I am tired of a few crack-brained professors of the country looking down the noses at the masses of the people who are furnishing the sweat and toil to support the nation in times of peace and whose sons fight for us in time of war, and I want to be particularly careful that we do not aid or abet that philosophy in writing this bill. If the boy from the Long View High School or from the Carolina rural school district wants to go back to that school, he has just as much right to do so as one would to go to Yale or Harvard. That is one thing I want to be particularly careful about.” U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on World War Veterans Legislation, Hearings on H.R. 3917 and S. 1767 to Provide Federal Government Aid for the Readjustment in Civilian Life of Returning World War II Veterans, January 11, 12, 13, 17, 18; February 24; March 9, 10, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 1944. More specifically, note the published Record of Hearing on March 31, at 432 and 433, as contained in published “History of Veterans Laws; Public Laws 346, 78C, 483, 78C; Veterans Administration, Vol IX;” Tab PL 346, 78C; Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of General Counsel, Legislative Services Division, Washington, D.C.
Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives, Women in Congress, 1977-1990 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1991), 219-220.
Mrs. Rogers went on to chair the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs during 1947-1948 and 1953-1954.
We quote Representative Rogers from the Congressional Record, as contained in The House Committee on World War Veterans Legislation published legislative history document on The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, located in room 340, Cannon House Office Building, Washington, D.C. At the time of the (Montgomery) book’s publication, the document is not shelved in room 340, and the authors have been unable to obtain the page number of the Rogers quote. The authors also note James B. Conant, president, Harvard University, asserted the GI Bill “could flood the college campuses with the least capable of the war generation.” Bennett, When Dreams Came True, 133 and 240. Robert M. Hutchins, President of the University of Chicago, saw the GI Bill as a “threat to American Education.” Dickson and Allen, The Bonus Army–An American Epic, 272. Hutchins speculated that “colleges and universities will find themselves converted into educational hobo jungles. And veterans, unable to get work and equally unable to resist putting pressure on the colleges and universities, will find themselves educational hobos…. Education is not a device for coping with mass unemployment.” Keith W. Olson, The GI Bill: The Veterans and The Colleges (University of Kentucky Press, 1974), 25. Lastly, the higher education establishment, headed by Conant and Hutchins, wanted to have direct control of GI Bill money. Noted Representative John Rankin of Mississippi, chairman of the Committee on World War Veterans’ Legislation: “This is a bill for veterans, not educators.” Bennett, When Dreams Came True, 155. Bennett also notes that “as a bill for veterans, not educators, the GI Bill would become a permanent force in American society, as Clark Kerr, former president of the University of California, observed 50 years after the bill’s passage. It did so by financing higher education through students rather than through institutions [emphasis is Kerr’s]. Bennett, When Dreams Came True, 156. Per Bennett, also at 156, Kerr favored “financing higher education by giving money directly to individuals and, therefore, markets rather than institutions.” In addition, Bennett observes at 157 that “the basic pattern of personal rather than institutional financing, first adopted in the GI Bill, has been reaffirmed in subsequent federal programs, such as Pell grants. ‘As a result, the intent of the GI Bill lives on,’ as Kerr observed.” Lastly, Bennett notes at 134 that [the GI Bill was] “so extensive and sweeping that it can be compared only to Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and Civil Rights Legislation. Of course, the great difference was the GI Bill vested control directly in the hands of individuals rather than new federally sponsored community action programs.”
Interestingly, sentimental and awakening appear elsewhere in the debate. Noted Representative Emanuel Celler of New York commenting on May 3, 1944, on S. 1767 that had passed the Senate and was under consideration by the House: “No man has yet bought groceries, paid his rent, gone to school or married on a ‘thank you.’ We are faced with the solemn obligation to assure them those very things they are fighting for, among them, freedom from want, [and] freedom from fear. It is not a question of sentimental slobbering over their sacrifices, too many pompous phrases have already covered that. [emphasis added]. It is a question of facing realistically, honestly, without compromise and without flinching, what every fighting man and woman in our armed forces is asking now: ‘Where do we go from here, boys?’” Statement excerpted from May 3, 1944, Congressional Record, A2284, “Servicemen’s Readjustment Act,” General, Part III, Pub. 346, 78th C., Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of General Counsel, Legislative Services Division. Also, notes Bennett in When Dreams Came True at 123: “That was the atmosphere [in February of 1944 of contentiousness between President Roosevelt and a coalition of conservative Democrats and Republicans] in which the GI Bill was wending its way through committee, having been introduced the month before. The New Deal and all of its works had become anathema to the vast majority of members. Even FDR’s few stalwart defenders, such as Senator Claude Pepper, had shown some suspicion about the administration’s education plans for GIs. The overall feeling was perhaps best expressed by Senator Kenneth Wherry (R-NE): ‘The New Deal and this Administration is having its wings clipped and from now on you can expect Congress to continue to do the clipping. I do think we have had quite an awakening and I think that the Senate realizes that we must cause a halt to government by executive order.’” Bennett attributes the Wherry quote to David Camelon in “The Fight for Mustering Out Pay” and “A Surprise Attack” that appeared in American Legion Magazine (September, October, November 1949).
Bennett, When Dreams Came True, 120-121.
House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, “Excerpts from When Dreams Came True and other writings by Michael J. Bennett,” http://veterans.House.gov/benefits/gi60th/wdct.html; (accessed March 16, 2005).
Greenberg, The GI Bill, 12. Further, the view of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) is found throughout the legislative history of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act. First, at 71, of his January 24, 1944, testimony before the Subcommittee on Veterans’ Legislation of the Senate Committee on Finance, Millard W. Rice, DAV national service director, said, “The bill now before the committee, S. 1617, the so-called Legion omnibus bill, is just such a bill, the enactment of which we fear very much might have a detrimental effect upon the administration of legislation for disabled men. We are particularly fearful that it might prove prejudicial to the interests of the service-connected and service-connectible veterans because of the numerous other problems that will be imposed upon the Veterans’ Administration if the provisions of this bill will be enacted into law.” Second, at 264 of the House Committee on World War Veterans Legislation published hearing document on H.R. 3917 and S. 1767, the committee (at the request of Millard W. Rice, national service director, Disabled American Veterans) inserts into the record an editorial that appeared on the front page of the Disabled American Veterans Semimonthly, issued on February 26, 1944, titled “Keep the Veterans’ Administration for the Disabled.” Third, at 265, the committee quotes numerous Detroit disabled veterans from information furnished by Mr. Rice: “It is not fair to the service-connected disabled to load up the Veterans Administration budget with benefits for the able-bodied discharged veteran, as set forth in the GI Bill…. Many of us are Legionnaires as well as members of the Disabled American Veterans and, when we speak, it is not against the Legion and their program for aid to the able-bodied discharged veteran in the shape of the greater education program or in unemployment insurance benefits. We do feel, however, that the cost of this program for the able-bodied veteran should not be included in the Veterans Administration budget. Also, that the administration of same be handled by other departments of the government.” Lastly, Representative Joseph P. O’Hara of Minnesota placed into the April 25, 1944, Congressional Record at A2121-22, “What is Wrong with the So-Called GI Bill of Rights?” The entry cites the views of aforementioned Millard W. Rice as delivered over radio station WINX, Washington, D.C., April 5, 1944: “First things should be done first. I submit to you that America’s disabled veterans have not yet been adequately provided for, nor have their dependents…. The Veterans Administration has heretofore been the one federal agency delegated primarily to deal with the problems of service-disabled veterans including vocational rehabilitation where needed, and, if it is also given the same responsibility as to millions of able-bodied veterans, it will naturally be apt to give less attention to the more complicated problems of disabled veterans. Post-war education for the able-bodied veterans should more appropriately be assumed by the various states, or, if federal assistance is needed, by the Office of Education.”
Congressional Record, House, June 13, 1944, 5933-5935. Title I: Hospitalizations, Claims, and Procedures; Title II: Education; Title III: Loans for the Purchase or Construction of Homes, Farms, and Business Property; Title IV: Employment; Title V: Readjustment Allowances for Former Members of the Armed Forces Who Are Unemployed; and Title VI: General Administrative and Penal Provisions.
Olson, The GI Bill, The Veterans, and The Colleges, 25. Fifty-six national education institutions under the American Council on Education initially also opposed the GI Bill legislation due to perceived, excessive federal control. Notes Bennett at 160: “If the professional educators’ language in calling the provision ‘the most serious threat to the existing state and local control of education that has yet appeared in this country’ was extreme, so was Rankin’s reaction. It transfigured him into a champion of unrestricted access to education—even for blacks.” Further, the current-day Center on Education Policy also cites the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 at 8 in “A Brief History of the Federal Role in Education: Why it Began and Why It’s Still Needed.” Notes the center, “The federal government has entered the field of education when a vital national interest was not being met by states or localities, or when national leadership was required to address a national problem.”
Ms. Borchardt served as a vice president, American Federation of Teachers, from 1924 through 1962. Ms. Borchardt’s papers are housed at the Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI. http://www.reuther.wayne.edu/ward/aft/people.html.
President Dr. Marvin was also chairman, Commission of National Education Associations on Post-War Education that was looking at educational opportunities for former GIs. Following World War I, Marvin served as a dean at the University of California. One of his duties was to administer the vocational rehabilitation training program for disabled, World War I veterans. Marvin, too, was concerned about potential, excessive federal control of education after World War II, as evidenced by his March 29, 1944, testimony at 308 of the published hearing record of the House Committee on World War Veterans Legislation. Noted Marvin: “[We] recommend that this bill have powers defined so that the administrator, the Veterans Administration, cannot reach down into the several states and dominate the state educational system.” But, unlike Zook and others, as a college president, Marvin especially seemed to appreciate that education under the GI Bill should not be limited only to colleges. At 307, he testifies that “there will be demand in the vocational schools and in the technical training schools and in apprenticeship training.” At 317, Marvin testifies that “have in mind that today I am not speaking of colleges and universities. I am speaking of education. If that boy needs a six-month course on how to plant something in a technical school in Texas, or how to plant alfalfa in Wisconsin, let us make sure he gets it.” Marvin’s focusing on the veteran—rather than institutions—seemed to gain him credibility with the House Committee on World War Veterans Legislation. Testifying in the Senate Finance Subcommittee before Chairman Bennett Champ Clark, Vice President Borchardt also seemed focused on the veterans rather than institutions: “When the first draft of the training bill came before us we were simply shocked at many of the unfortunate provisions in it, and many of the vitally essential principles that were omitted from it. We are very happy to see that most of those unfortunate provisions have been deleted. For example, the original bill would have denied 93 percent of the men in the service the benefit of training by a stilted process of selection. That bill provided that those servicemen who were ‘selected’ should have training.” (Ms. Borchardt was testifying on a Veterans’ Omnibus bill, S. 1617, “a bill to provide federal government aid for the readjustment in civilian life of returning World War II veterans” on which the subcommittee held nine hearings during January-March, 1944.)
Congressional Record – March 28, 1944, A1680.
Hearings before Senate Subcommittee of Committee on Finance on S. 1617, 78th Cong., January 14, 15, 21, 24; February 11, 14, 23; March 8 and 10, 1944. Hearings before the [House] Committee on World War Veterans Legislation on H.R. 3917 and S. 1767, 78th Cong., January 11, 12, 13, 17, 18; February 24; March 9, 10, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 1944. Compilation of dates cited from Memorandum for File, 7-11-47, L.R.& R. “Servicemen’s Readjustment Act,” History of Veterans/Laws Public Laws, 346, 78th C, 483, 78th C, Tab PL 346 78C, Roosevelt Transmittal, HDCO 344 78th C., Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of General Counsel, Legislative Services Division.
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “GI Bill 50th Anniversary 1944-1994” (History subsection), June 1994, 2.
Ballard and Piper, Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran’s Champion, 71.
John Vogel, undersecretary for benefits, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, noted still another visionary law in his 1994 Veterans’ Day remarks at California University of Pennsylvania: “Presidents Lincoln and Roosevelt were instrumental in shaping the role of government in veterans’ affairs, particularly in higher education. In 1862, President Lincoln signed the Land Grant College Act, which has been described as prying ‘higher education from the ivied realm of the privileged’ and creating ‘peoples colleges’ where millions of Americans had the opportunity for the first time to go to college… with [Roosevelt] signing the GI Bill in 1944, higher education would again change dramatically.” Mr. Vogel’s remarks are in possession of Mississippi State University.
Administrator of Veterans Affairs Frank T. Hines sent a letter on June 19, 1944, to the Honorable Samuel Rosemann, special counsel to the President, “with an enclosure in draft form, which furnishes data for a statement that the President may desire to issue in connection with the signing of the GI Bill… there are two statements enclosed: one in considerable detail, and the other more consolidated. Servicemen’s Readjustment Act,” General, Part IIIa, Pub 346, 78th C., Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of General Counsel, Legislative Services Division.
House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Montgomery GI Bill: Report to Accompany H.R. 1085, 100th Cong., 1st sess., 1987, 9. Current-day presidential historian Michael Beschloss commented on Roosevelt’s role: “The amazing thing is that Roosevelt really didn’t spend much time on this. He signed this bill two weeks after D-Day. He had spent much less thought on this than he did on most of the New Deal, but if you look at the effect of this, this had much greater impact on bringing Americans into the middle class than everything Roosevelt had tried to do over eight years in the 1930s.” PBS online News Hour, “The GI Bill’s Legacy July 4, 2000,” http://web-cro5.pbs.org/newshour-//bb/military/july-dec00/gibill-7-4.html. It appears Roosevelt had an experience based reference point for his “avoid veterans selling apples on street corners” statement. Note Dickson and Allen on the front dust cover of The Bonus Army—An American Epic (Walker & Company, 2004), “During the summer of 1932, in the depths of the Depression, some 45,000 World War I veterans descended on Washington, D.C. to demand immediate payment of a cash bonus promised them eight years earlier for their war-time service…. Roosevelt proved even more determined than President Hoover not to pay the bonus, and bonus armies returned in the first three years of his administration. Seeking a solution, Roosevelt sent many to work camps in Florida, where, on Labor Day 1935, the worst hurricane ever to strike the United States [until that time] killed some 250 unprotected vets, prompting a New Deal whitewash and cover-up of the facts.” Also instructive are observations by Janet Maslin: “And although Presidents Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge (‘Patriotism which is bought and paid for is not patriotism’) had been loftily opposed to the high price of veterans’ bonuses, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was no more helpful. ‘The veteran who is disabled owes his condition to the war,’ Roosevelt said, as he vetoed a bonus bill. ‘The healthy veteran who is unemployed owes his troubles to the Depression.’” “Home from the War, Yet the Battle Is Just Beginning,” New York Times, February 21, 2005.
Service members learned about this GI Bill idea in various ways during the war. Making sure service members knew about it during the height of the war seemed secondary to the political urgency at hand for both the Congress and the President, at least in the eye of one individual who wrote what is regarded as the seminal document on the World War II GI Bill: “With respect to timing and the character of its actions, Congress supported a GI Bill only when there were sustained casualty lists.” Olson, The GI Bill, The Veterans, and The Colleges, 108.
Vogel, “1994 Veterans’ Day Remarks,” 10, 11.
One of the effects was hope. Notes Stephen Ambrose in Band of Brothers at 113 and 114: “For the first time in the Army [during the July 13-September 16, 1944, period after D-Day], and to his delight, [Pvt. David Kenyon Webster] found men who talked about going to college after the war, including Corporal Dukeman and Sergeants Muck, Carson, and Malarkey… and Lieutenant Compton had convinced the college-bound group that UCLA was the only place to go for an education.”
Olson, The GI Bill, The Veterans, and The Colleges, 38. President Roosevelt understandably was preoccupied with matters associated with the war itself: “The White House quietly approved the bill but offered no leadership.” Michael Bennett notes that, fortunately, Congress created the GI Bill before millions of our troops came home rather than waiting until after they came home: “Veterans ‘will be a potent force for good or evil in the years to come,’ [American Legion] National Commander Atherton said during a radio address on May 2. ‘They can make our country or break it. They can restore our democracy or scrap it.’” Mr. Bennett notes that “Eleanor Roosevelt had also foreseen the potential threat. As early as April 1942, she warned that veterans could ‘create a dangerous pressure group in our midst.’” Bennett, When Dreams Came True, 129.
American women at home played a vital role in our winning the war. Mary Blauser Meilwes of Boynton Beach, FL, describes her war-time life: “In 1942, I worked for Curtiss-Wright in Columbus, OH, where the firm designed and built the SB2C Helldriver carrier-borne attack plane for the Navy. As a clerk in the engineering/planning department, I earned 40 cents an hour for 40 hours. We worked nine hours for five days and eight hours on Saturdays… Gasoline was rationed, so it was necessary to carpool to obtain gas coupons… Shoes also were rationed… The plant cafeteria served good food. For breakfast, it offered the best fried mush for 5 cents… lunch cost about a quarter… liquor also was rationed.” Reminisce Magazine, “The Magazine That Brings Back More Good Times,” (January 2007), 63.
Air & Space Smithsonian, February/March, 2007, p. 68.The 3, 812 figure includes “a scattering of U.S. War Department employees, Red Cross workers, Merchant Marine sailors, and one war correspondent whose bodies were recovered in the United Kingdom during World War II. Another 5, 126 are listed on the Wall of the Missing. The authors also note “roughly 70 percent of the burials drew from the U.S. Army Air Forces, and most of these came from the 8th Air Force. It was the nature of the 8th’s long-distance bombing campaign, says [cemetery associate Arthur] Brookes, that many fell unseen into remote country, coastal waters, or their burning targets below. By war’s end, more than 10,000 Americans had been buried here. In 1945, the U.S. government offered the next of kin of deceased overseas personnel the option of repatriation; about 60 percent accepted. Yet the buried and the missing at Cambridge represent only a fraction of the 8th’s 26,000 dead.”
Such cemeteries are maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission, which Congress established in 1923 to “commemorate the service achievements and sacrifice of U.S. armed forces where they served overseas since 1917, and within the U.S. when directed by public law.” The Commission maintains “24 overseas military cemeteries that serve as resting places for almost 125,000 American war dead; on Tablets of the Missing that memorialize more than 94,000 U.S. servicemen and women; and through memorials, monuments, and markers.” American Battle Monuments Commission, “Time Will Not Dim the Glory of Their Deeds,” http://www.abmc.gov/home.php; (accessed January 18, 2007).
Olson, The GI Bill, The Veterans, and The Colleges, 99. Seymour E. Harris, Harvard professor, was one of many who wanted to limit the scope of the GI Bill: “In education, however, the GI Bill carried the principle of democratization too far.” Olson disagreed, as he notes: The GI Bill paid “rich dividends to society and the concept of democracy.” Olson, 110. Some 35 years later, the president of the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges (AACJC) offered a general observation about the role of postsecondary education: “Contrary to the elitist form of education, lifelong education is universal in character. It represents democratization of education [emphasis added].” Edmund G. Gleazer, Jr., The Community College: Values, Vision & Vitality (1980), 182.
Michael J. Bennett, “An International GI Bill Could Turn Third World’s Emerging Military into Middle-Class Citizens,” Paper in possession of Mississippi State University, page 3.
The 7.8 million veterans who used the GI Bill exceeded all expectations with respect to numbers of participants. However, the follow-up analysis of the GI Bill’s effectiveness years later was cast in much broader terms: “A Congressional study under Congressman Olin E. Teague concluded that the original GI Bill had achieved the specific purposes for which it was written: prevention of any serious problems of unemployment, unrest, and dissatisfaction among veterans, and restoration of human resources lost or retarded by war.” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “History of the GI Bill,” http://www.75anniversary.va.gov/history/gi_bill.html; (accessed July 7, 2007).
Veterans Administration, Information Service, “GI Bill of Rights 25th Anniversary 1944-1969” (Fact Sheet for Editors, Broadcasters, Writers), (Washington, D.C., 1969), 9.
Ibid., 8.
Greenberg, The GI Bill, 47.
Ibid. The following observations all comport with Greenberg: “Veterans demanded more practical college course work, and this need led to a changed concept of higher education, with more emphasis on degree programs like business and engineering.” West’s Encyclopedia of Law, 2nd ed., “GI Bill.” Suzanne Mettler’s research in Soldiers to Citizens: The GI Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation on page 71 also reinforces the Greenberg statement: “Veterans pursued more practical fields than students of the past, gravitating especially towards business administration, followed by professional fields such as law, medicine, dentistry, and teaching, and then in almost equal numbers, engineering, architecture, the physical sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences.” At 213, Note 60, Mettler cites three sources for the aforementioned statement. First, President’s Commission on Veterans’ Pensions, Readjustment Benefits: Education and Training and Employment and Unemployment, 84th Cong., 2nd sess., 1956, 27-29. Second, “The GI Bill: In 10 Years, 8 Million,” Newsweek, October 1954, 90.” Third, Lloyd C. Emmons, “College Curricula of World War II Veterans,” School and Society, August 1946, 152-53.
Olson, The GI Bill, The Veterans, and The Colleges, 102. Many veterans were the first in their families to pursue postsecondary education, and in so doing, they changed the definition of what constituted a college student: “Veterans embedded in higher education the concept of the married student.”
Bennett, “An International GI Bill Could Turn Third-World’s Emerging Military into Middle-Class Citizens,” 6.
Anthony Principi, keynote address, National Association of Veterans’ Program Administrators 25th Annual Conference, San Diego, CA, October 20, 2000. The following reinforce the Principi observation: First, “Non-veterans at Stanford called veterans ‘DARs’ for Damn Average Raisers.” Keith W. Olson, “The Astonishing Story: Veterans Make Good on the Nation’s Promise,” Educational Record (Fall 1994, p. 24). Second, “Here is the most astonishing fact in the history of American higher education…. The GIs are hogging the honor rolls and the Dean’s lists; they are walking away with the top marks in all of their courses… far from being an educational problem, the veteran has become an asset to higher education.” Benjamin Fine, New York Times, November 1947, quoted in Olson, The GI Bill, The Veterans, and The Colleges, 41; and Bennett, When Dreams Came True, Chapter 8. Third, “Similar traditions [such as at Columbia University of climbing a greased pole to fetch an object that Mettler cites at 71] disappeared on other campuses such as the freshman dink (skullcap or beanie) at UCLA…. “The G.I. Bill: In 10 Years, 8 million,” 88, quoted in Suzanne Mettler, Soldiers to Citizens, 213. Mettler also notes at 67 that “many universities and colleges began offering courses throughout the entire year rather than only during the traditional nine-month schedule, thus permitting veterans to complete their degree in less than the typical four years.” At page 212, note 37, Mettler cites “Readjustment Benefits: Education and Training,” 24-25, as the source of this statement.
Here are two examples. First, Rob Norton speaks to consequences of many different types of public policies ranging from quotas on imported steel to limitations on roadside billboards. The Library of Economics and Liberty, “Unintended Consequences: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics,” http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/UnintendedConsequences.html; (accessed September 18, 2008). Second, the novel Unintended Consequences, written by John Ross and first published in 1996 by Accurate Press, is a novel about gun control legislation and unintended consequences of same.
The World War II GI Bill and Beyond: The Legacy Continues
We do not discuss in the text how educators, government officials, and others dramatically underestimated the extent to which World War II veterans would use the GI Bill after the war. Six examples follow: First, “so little investigation of this situation has been made, and the best guess that we can find, at the present time is that at least 1 out of every 10 of these veterans who return will want some kind of educational and training opportunities, so that you can easily see that if that estimate is anywhere near correct that more than a million men will be involved in this educational program.” House Committee on World War Veterans Legislation, Hearings on H.R. 3917 and S. 1767 to Provide Federal Government Aid for the Readjustment in Civilian Life of Returning World War II Veterans, January 11, 12, 13, 17, 18; February 24; March 9, 10, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 1944, hearing of March 29, testimony of Dr. George F. Zook, president, American Council on Education, 311. Second, “[Donald] Eberly pointed out ‘Earl McGrath, a future commissioner of education, predicted that 640,000 of the 15 million veterans would pursue further education under the GI Bill. The number who actually did so was 7.8 million. Mr. McGrath… did not account for the fact that the educational appetites of millions of veterans had been whetted by their service experience.’” Building a Consensus on National Service, 1993, 18. Third, Mettler notes the following in Soldiers to Citizens, 204-205, note 2: “Veterans Administration Chief Frank T. Hines predicted that 700,000 students—less than 5 percent of all service members—would attend college on the GI Bill.” Fourth, an internal March 21, 1944, memorandum regarding S. 1767 from the Executive Assistant to the Administrator of Veterans Affairs to Solicitor Odom states, “If the assumption of the solicitor is correct in regard to the total strength of the armed forces (including Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and the components thereof) and that approximately 10 percent of the veterans would be granted the educational benefits….” “Servicemen’s Readjustment Act,” General, Part III, Pub. 346, 78th C., Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of General Counsel, Legislative Services Division. Fifth, U.S. Commissioner of Education Earl McGrath voiced an even more conservative figure of 640,000. Earl J.
McGrath, “The Education of the Veteran,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March 1945, 84. (It appears Mr. McGrath quotes himself). Sixth, Representative Emanuel Celler offered an observation like no other. He referred to Title II, the education aspect of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, as “no empty provision. A survey conducted by Research Branch of the Moral Service Division indicates that 7 percent of the men think they will actually go back to full-time school or college after the war. It is conceded, however, that married men and those over 25 are least likely to do so.” Congressional Record, May 3, 1944, A2284.
As discussed in the text, more veterans enrolled in and graduated from trade, business, and high schools than colleges and universities. But the popular media of the 1940s and 1950s understandably were more intrigued with veterans home from war who enrolled in college and university programs. So that’s what media tended to write about. In this chapter, we focus more on collegiate veterans, as well as what media referred to as “elites” of the higher education community who were vocally skeptical about enrolling veterans.
Several speakers in this chapter furnish information to reinforce this statement, including Conant, Pusey, Ellis, and Drucker. Also instructive are statements made by legislators at the time: “I regard the GI Bill of Rights, passed by the Senate in March and now in conference between the Houses, as one of the most important measures that has ever come before Congress.” Honorable Harry S Truman quoted in the statement by Senator Bennett C. Clark of Missouri, Congressional Record, June 12, 1944, A3196. In addition, “we are now in executive session on that [GI] bill, which is probably the most explosive and most far-reaching measure of its kind ever produced in Congress. We are going over it line-by-line and paragraph-by-paragraph.” Honorable John Rankin, Congressional Record, April 20, 1944, 3654.
House Committee on World War Veterans Legislation, Hearings on H.R. 3917 and S. 1767, March 29, 1944, 317.
Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on Finance, Hearings on S. 1617, Veterans’ Omnibus Bill, January 14, 15, 21, 24; February 11, 14, 23; March 8 and 10, 1944, 221-222. The Thomas bill appeared to be a bill based on the recommendations of a committee of educators working under the auspices of the Navy and War departments, that President Roosevelt convened on November 13, 1942, regarding postwar education opportunities of service personnel. The Preliminary Report to the President of the United States from the Armed Forces Committee on Post-War Educational Opportunities for Service Personnel, June 30, 1943. The report recommended at 2: “The federal government should make it financially feasible for every man and woman who has served honorably for a minimum period in the armed forces since September 16, 1940, to spend a period of up to one calendar year [emphasis added] in a school, a college, a technical institution, or in actual training in industry, so that he can further his education, learn a trade, or acquire the necessary knowledge and skill for farming, commerce, manufacturing, or other pursuits. In addition, the federal government should make it financially possible for a limited number [emphasis added] of ex-servicemen and women selected for their special aptitudes to carry on their general, technical or professional education for a further period of one, two or three years.” Representing the American Federation of Teachers, Ms. Borchardt objected to the recommendation that only a small percentage of veterans would be selected for education and training beyond one year. Her testimony in regard to 93 percent of veterans not being allowed to enroll in training beyond a single year [emphasis added] appears to be in response to the following statement in the Report of the President’s Committee, at 10: “It seems a reasonable assumption that if the nation mobilizes an Army and Navy of about 12,000,000, a minimum of 1,000,000 may be expected to be interested in resuming interrupted courses of education or in applying to new educational courses abilities uncovered and developed by their experience in the armed forces. Should demobilization begin in 1945, it seems likely that the Army’s and Navy’s share of the educational deficit will be relatively overcome if 200,000 ex-service personnel are enabled to carry on their education for a second year after discharge, approximately 165,000 for a third year, and about 150,000 for a fourth year.” Further, Ms. Borchardt appears to object to the report’s recommendation at 14: “Establish quotas for training after the first year and apportion the subquotas to the several states.” House Committee on Education, Post-War Educational Opportunities for Service Personnel, 78th Cong., 2, 10.
Bennett, When Dreams Came True, 161; Dickson and Allen, The Bonus Army; 272; Olson, Educational Record, 22.
Dickson and Allen, The Bonus Army, 275.
Ibid., 276.
Veterans Administration, “GI Bill of Rights 25th Anniversary 1944-1969,” 11.
Bennett, When Dreams Came True, 239, quoted in Karen Thomas’, The GI Bill of Rights: The Law That Changed America (Washington, D.C.), unpublished manuscript for a television documentary.
Sergeant Messiah studied architecture most likely as part of a baccalaureate degree program. However, the World War II GI Bill furnished education and training assistance in many areas, including for a high school diploma, on-the-job training, trade and business school, and graduate study. The Veterans Administration promulgated and then published numerous definitions associated with the explicit language expressed in the law and the administration of the GI Bill program. Defining the terms used in the law fulfilled an important function in administering such a large and complex program. Veterans Administration Index, Digest of Decisions of the Administrator of Veterans Affairs (Omar N. Bradley), March 1, 1931, to June 30, 1946, 96-101. The period between 1931 and 1944 furnished definitions for the vocational rehabilitation of disabled veterans that predated enactment of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, as well.
Greenberg, The GI Bill, 71.
Veterans Administration, “GI Bill of Rights 25th Anniversary, 1944-1969,” 12.
House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, “Some Notable Beneficiaries of the GI Bill,” http://veterans.house.gov/benefits/gi60th/notbenef.html; (accessed March 16, 2005).
House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, http://veterans.house.gov/benefits/gi60th.wdet.html; (accessed March 16, 2005).
Ibid. Also, the authors note that Dwight Young at 91 in Dear Mr. President, Letters to the Oval Office from the Files of the National Archives expands on the Bennett statement: “Almost as soon as the fighting ended in 1945, the United States started working to help war-shattered Germany restart its economy and help the German people rebuild their lives. Today, discussion of America’s contribution to postwar European recovery usually focuses on the amazing accomplishments of the Marshall Plan, which funneled an estimated $13 billion into various programs to help Europe get back on its feet. Less well known is the fact that the U.S. spent nearly an equal amount—almost $11 billion—on European recovery during the years between 1945 and 1948, before the Marshall Plan was launched. Among those early and largely unheralded efforts was a program that got under way in the spring of 1947 to provide food to German school children. To mark the first anniversary of the program, more than a million Bavarian children took part in a drawing competition to show their gratitude for America’s generosity. The 50 best drawings were sent to [President Harry S Truman] at the White House.”
Edited by Philip Scranton and published by University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA, 2001.
Department of Veterans Affairs, 60th anniversary [news release], June 18, 2004.
Ben Callison with Jaunita Winkler, Sandy Kelly, Dena Balsama, Erin Rulli, and Esther Walenta, Ben: The Life and Times of Benjamin Callison, 33. Mr. Callison attended Michigan Tech in the early 1940s as part of the Army Air Corps commissioning program. Decorated in 1945 by the 8th Army Air Corps for “courage, coolness, and skill in combat,” Mr. Callison went on to serve from 1947 to 1974 as a firefighter and officer in the Los Angeles Police Department. Thereafter, he served with the Office of California Fire Marshal from 1974 to 1979. In 1999, while visiting his granddaughter, Tara, and her family in South Carolina, Mr. Callison visited the Mighty 8th Air Force Museum in Savannah, GA. Dedicated in 1996, the museum honors the 350,000 members of the 8th Air Force, including 26,000 who were killed in action and 28,000 who became prisoners of war.
Bennett, When Dreams Came True, 7.
Greenberg, The GI Bill, 51.
Suzanne Mettler, Soldiers to Citizens: The GI Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 7. Dr. Mettler cites Putnam in Bowling Alone, at 268 as the source for the 80 percent figure.
Suzanne Mettler, interview by Kehrer (co-author), July 14, 2004.
Public Law 550, the “Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1952,” signed by President Harry S Truman, July 16, 1952.
Public Law 358, the “Veterans Readjustment Benefits Act of 1966,” signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, March 3, 1966. Mettler suggests at 195, note 30 of Soldiers to Citizens, that for an assessment of the effects of the Vietnam-era GI Bill program, see Sar A. Levitan and Joyce K. Zickler, Swords to Plowshares: Our GI Bill, (Salt Lake City: Olympus, 1973).
Olin “Tiger” Teague represented Texas’s 6th Congressional district from 1946 to 1978. He served as chairman, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, and also as chairman, Committee on Science and Technology. Noted Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Nicholson in remarks regarding the 25th Annual Olin E. Teague Award on October 12, 2005, “By the time he left the chairmanship of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Congressman Teague had authored more veterans’ legislation than any member preceding him.” The Olin E. Teague Veterans’ Center in Temple, TX, is a full-service teaching hospital and the headquarters of the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System. Olin Teague’s Congressional papers are preserved at the Texas A&M University Archives, and the Olin E. Teague Building houses the offices of the Associate Provost for Information Technology, among others. To learn more about the extraordinary public service of Olin Teague, see the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-present.
The authors note that Guy H. McMichael III served as chief counsel to the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, 1971 to 1977. Van Hartke (D-IN) served as chairman and Strom Thurmond (R-SC) as ranking member at that time. Among other duties, Mr. McMichael advised the committee with respect to numerous improvements to the Vietnam-era GI Bill enacted into law. He then served as Veterans Administration general counsel during the tenure of Max Cleland, Administrator of Veterans Affairs in the Carter presidency. Among later assignments, Mr. McMichael also would serve as chairman, Board of Contract Appeals, and acting under secretary for Benefits (Veterans Benefits Administration) at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.
Department of Veterans Affairs, FY 2008 Congressional Budget Submission, Volume 11, 2B-13.
Producing Legislative “Widgets:” Committees, Bills, and Bipartisanship
A statement in a January 3, 2007, article titled “What the Congress Can Do for America” by President George W. Bush published in The Wall Street Journal may be instructive for students: “The majority party gets to pass the bill it wants. The minority party, especially where the margins are close, has a strong say in the form bills take.”
This is a phrase heard in the nation’s Capitol from time to time and isn’t exclusive to G.V. Montgomery.
Rules Committee of the House of Representatives, “Glossary of Terms in the Federal Budget Process,” http://www.rules.house.gov/archives/glossary_fbp.html; (accessed June 12, 2007).
Ibid.
Ibid., 6.
Ibid., 14.
Ibid., 10.
Ibid., 17.
The visual basically is replicated from Our American Government, Foreword by Robert W. Ney and Saxby Chambliss, Chairman and Vice Chairman, respectively, Committee on House Administration, (U.S. House of Representatives, Doc. 108-94, Washington, D.C.: U.S.Government Printing Office, 2003), 30. The House Rules Committee generally is not directly involved in veteran’s legislation and is not depicted here.
The use of the term legislative widgets is not exclusive to the authors.
During the 1987 Senate consideration of Montgomery GI Bill legislation (S. 12 and H.R. 1085), Alan Cranston was the Democratic (majority) Whip, and Alan Simpson was Republican (minority) Whip. Mr. Cranston and Mr. Simpson served as the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. “Dual-hatted” members such as Mr. Cranston and Mr. Simpson helped move the legislation along.
For an example of a “whip notice,” see http://republicanwhip.house.gov. The House Majority Whip for the 110th Congress was Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina. The House Minority Whip was Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri. The Senate Majority Whip for the 110th Congress was Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois. The Senate Minority Whip was Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi (who later resigned from Congress).
Per the official rules of the House of Representatives, suspension of the rules is a procedure used on the House floor to pass relatively noncontroversial bills: “This procedure is governed primarily by Clause 1 of House Rule XV. When a bill or some other matter is considered under suspension, floor debate is limited, all floor amendments are prohibited, and a two-thirds vote is required for final passage.” Congressional Research Service, Suspension of the Rules in the House: Principal Features, 2006, 1. Further, for a listing of Congressional Research Service reports on the legislative process in the House, see http://www.rules.house.gov/archives/crs_reports.html. Topics include: Congress; The House; Introduction and Origin of Legislative Measures; House Floor Proceedings; House Committees; Special Rules and the Rules Committee; Budget Process; Congress: The Senate; Relations with the Senate; and Presidential Relations. For additional information on the legislative process, see http://www.crs.gov/products/guides/guidehome.html.
Charles W. Johnson, How Our Laws Are Made, (U.S. House of Representatives, Doc. 108-93, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2003), 34, 35. The authors note that Mr. Johnson served with distinction in the House for 40 years under seven successive speakers, including 10 years as Parliamentarian.
United States Senate, “Reference Home/Glossary,” http://www.senate.gov/reference/glossary/_term/conference_committee.html; (accessed June 13, 2007).
Michael J. Malbin, Unelected Representatives: Congressional Staff and the Future of Representative Government, (Basic Books, 1980), Chap. 5, “Detailed Negotiations: The Phantom Conference on the GI Bill.”
Ibid.
Ibid., 79.
Ibid., 80. However, Malbin notes the original source of the Teague statement as quoted in Colman McCarthy, “‘Tiger’ Teague and the Veterans Compromise,” Washington Post, November 19, 1977. Also William H. Harader, in his 1968 Johns Hopkins University doctoral dissertation, found that Representative Olin Teague was respected by Senators and Senate staff, as far back as the 1960s and perhaps earlier. At 180, Harader quotes one Senator assigned to one of the several committees having jurisdiction over veterans’ issues prior to when the Senate formed the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs in 1973: “The House committee is a real buffer, protecting both bodies. Many of us see Teague as a real God-send.” At 184, Harader quotes one member of the House Committee: “[Senator Russell] Long comes to a conference with his hand full of proxies, all set to hold his ground. Then, we start discussing the bill, [and] Teague has to spend hours explaining the thing and what it will do to him [Long]. Then, we have to explain what his changes will do to the [veterans’ benefits] program. Only after we educate him, can we talk about the substance of the conference. He usually comes around after a respectable length of time.” Harader then concludes that “the influence of the House is based on the expertise of its committee. The Senate has no comparable experts.” William H. Harader, “The Committee on Veterans’ Affairs: A Study of the Legislative Process and Mileau as They Pertain to Veterans Legislation” (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1968), 180, 184. For further information on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, see Wallis, Anthony A. and Beuttler, Fred. W., A History of the House Commitee on Veterans’ Affairs: 1794-2009. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2010.
When the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees would consider the bills passed by their respective chambers, the two bodies often merged all the separate bills into one large bill, sometimes called an omnibus bill. The Joint Explanatory Statement (JES) would explain how the House and Senate combined the bills and the results of their negotiations on each provision in each bill; the two bodies could adopt the provisions by not changing them, amending them, or dropping them.
The bill’s legislative language itself would be an important part of the compromise-agreement package, as expressed through the JES. But the JES often took on the role of explanatory vehicle because it would be written in everyday, pedestrian language rather than bill language. Congress issues the JES jointly as a single House-Senate published document.
U.S. Government Info/Resources, “Census 2000 Apportionment Data Released,” http://usgovinfo.about.com.library/weekly/aa122800a.html; (accessed January 19, 2007).
Otto Von Bismarck (1815-1898), Chancellor of Germany, 1871-1890, is credited with saying “Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made.” The Quotations Page, “Quotations by Author Otto Von Bismarck,” http:www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Otto_von_Bismarck, (accessed May 11, 2007).
Edgar Potter, Cowboy Slang, (Phoenix, Golden West History), 1986, 63.
Colin L. Powell, “What’s the Secret to Good Leadership,” State Magazine, February 2002, 2.
Senators John Tower of Texas and Sam Nunn of Georgia—among many others—did not share this view.
1980-1983—Road to Enactment: How to Fix a “Hollow” Army
House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, 97th Cong., 1st sess., 1981, 14, 15, Report to Accompany H.R. 1400 Veterans’ Educational Assistance Act of 1981. The Vietnam Conflict ended in 1973, but the Vietnam-era period continued for GI Bill education benefits until 1975. Plus, the draft ended in 1973. The balance of the cited footnote furnished some historical background; “In February 1970, the Gates Commission recommended that the country complete the transition to an All-Volunteer Force by July 1, 1971. Though President Nixon accepted the goal of an All-Volunteer Force in principle, the pressures of the Vietnam War and the need for a more orderly transition to an All-Volunteer Force necessitated deferral of the target date from July 1, 1971, to July 1, 1973. Actual inductions of men into the Armed Forces ended on December 31, 1972; and on June 30, 1973, with certain minor exceptions, the authority of the President to induct men into the Armed Forces expired. Standby [military] draft registration continued until April, 1975, when it was terminated by executive order of President Gerald R. Ford. Although the draft ended in 1973, entitlement to the Vietnam Era GI Bill continued to be extended to those joining the All-Volunteer Force. On May 7, 1975, President Ford issued a proclamation terminating the Vietnam wartime period…. “The Veterans Administration in its report on H.R. 6806… to terminate accrual of [Vietnam era] educational benefits stated… with the signing of the cease-fire agreement and implementing protocols of January 27, 1973, which ended our involvement in hostilities in Vietnam… it is appropriate to terminate the current [Vietnam era] readjustment program.”
United States Department of Defense, Report of Secretary Elliot L. Richardson on the FY 1974 Defense Budget and FY 1974-1978 Defense Program, Senate Committee on Appropriations—Department of Defense Subcommittee, unnumbered table titled “Draft Calls,” March 26, 1973, 120.
Beginning in 1970, a lottery drawing determined the order in which males born from 1944 to 1950 would be drafted. Selective Service System, “History and Records—Induction Statistics,” http://www.sss.gov/induct.html; (accessed May 8, 2007).
House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Veterans’ Educational Assistance Act of 1981, 97th Cong., 1st sess., 1981, 15.
Ibid., 22.
Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Educational Incentives and the All-Volunteer Force, 96th Cong., 2nd sess., 1980.
Ibid., 47. Testimony by Honorable William S. Cohen, a U.S. Senator from the state of Maine (prepared statement for the record).
General Meyer was a highly accomplished and professional military leader and he believed strongly in the Army and its soldiers. He took no joy in using the word “hollow” to describe the Army. He felt he had no choice. General “Shy” Meyer, interview by Kehrer (co-author), Arlington, VA, 2006.
Darryl W. Kehrer, “Symposium on The GI Bill and the Revolution in American Higher Education,” presentation, the Harry S Truman Library Institute, St. Louis, MO, January 19, 1996.
Veterans’ Educational Assistance Act of 1981, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs to Accompany H.R. 1400, 97th Cong., 1st sess., 14.
Department of the Army, Continental Army Command (CONARC), “Reports on Modern Volunteer Army (MVA)—Concept, Experiments, Quality Army,” undated, 1. Boxed information on Volunteer Army (VOLAR) Evaluation Project, Fort Ord, archived at the U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, PA. For information on contents of the project, see United States Army, Army Heritage Collection Online Research Catalog at http://ahecwebopac.carlisle.army.mil.
General William C. Westmoreland knew combat soldiers and the Army well: “In 1964, General Westmoreland was appointed Deputy Commander, Military Assistance Command, Republic of Vietnam. Six months later, he was promoted to General and designated as Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam and Commanding General, United States Army, Vietnam, where he served for four years.” The authors note “in 1968, General Westmoreland returned to the United States to assume the Army’s highest post—Chief of Staff. Charged by President Nixon to convert the Army to an all volunteer force, he successfully guided the Army as it transitioned from a Vietnam-oriented, conscripted force to an Army of volunteer professionals, trained, equipped, and focused on protecting the vital interests of the nation.” Further, during his 36 years of military service, he served as First Captain at West Point from which he graduated in 1936; saw extensive combat in the North African and European Theater of Operations throughout World War II, including at the Kasserine Pass; commanded the 101st Airborne Division; was appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as 45th Superintendent of the United States Military Academy; and commanded the Army’s 18th Airborne Corps, the Army’s strategic rapid reaction force. In 1965, Time magazine named him Man of the Year. Among other books, he is author of A Soldier Reports, a memoir of 40 years in uniform. General Westmoreland died on July 18, 2005, at age 91. He is buried at West Point. The quotations above are cited from Association of Graduates, U.S. Military Academy, Citation: William Childs Westmoreland, http://www.aog.usma.edu/AOG/AWARDS/DGA/96-Westmorl.html; (accessed January 20, 2007). “Gen William Childs Westmoreland USA (Ret.), March 26, 1914-July 18, 2005,” http://west-point.org/users/usma1936/10571/.
Ibid., 1, 2.
“On June 30, 1973, the Armed Forces would be comprised of 2, 252, 846 men and women: approximately 801,000 in the Army, 564,000 in the Navy, 196,000 in the Marines, and 691,000 in the Air Force…. Of the men who signed on with all services in June 1973, 18.3 percent were black, compared with 13.5 percent among all males of military age. Blacks favored the Army most and Navy least in June recruitments: 24.1 percent of Army recruits were black; 17.2 percent in the Marines; 15.4 percent in the Air Force, and 11.2 percent in the Navy.” “Volunteer Army—Is It Working,” General Creighton W. Abrams, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, U.S. News and World Report, August 6, 1973, 41. With respect to women, “we are also making strides in upgrading and enlarging the contribution of women in the Army. More occupational specialties have been opened to them. Of the 482 occupational specialties in the Army, 434, or approximately 90 percent, are now open to women.” Statement of General Creighton W. Abrams, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, before the Subcommittee on Defense, Senate Committee on Appropriations, March 29, 1973, 22.
G.V. Montgomery, “The Montgomery GI Bill: Development, Implementation, and Impact,” Educational Record, 1994: 49.
Ibid., 60.
The bill number was H.R. 7726, introduced in the 94th Congress.
U.S. House of Representatives, Report of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs to Accompany H.R. 1400, 15.
Ibid., 15-17.
In this parenthetical, the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Report to accompany H.R. 1400 at page 17 used the words “about 1 out of every 4 eligible enlistees;” 23.3 is the actual percentage.
Ibid., 17.
Ibid.
Ibid., 19.
G.V. Montgomery cites the seven years in a June 1, 1987, letter to Honorable Alan Simpson saying, “The development and enactment of this legislation has taken a little more than seven years.” Montgomery also thanks Senator Simpson “for the major role you played in helping get the bill enacted into law.” Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Simpson had attended the Montgomery GI Bill signing ceremony at the White House earlier that day. House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Internal Historical File on the Montgomery GI Bill.
Every two years as a new Congress convenes, bill numbers begin with one. Subsequent bills are assigned a number in sequence as they are introduced. In the House, a staffer hand carries the bill with the member’s signature on it to a small area on the House floor where a clerk hand writes the bill number at the top of the bill and deposits it in a box. The bill and number are officially printed a few days later.
Congressional Record, February 11, 1987, H676. “On January 28, 1981, I first introduced the new GI Bill, H.R. 1400. Prior to that date, the staff had worked for approximately eight months with the military service departments to lay the groundwork for this legislative proposal. It has proven to be time well spent.” Mr. Montgomery made this observation as part of his introductory statement on H.R. 1085 on this date on behalf of himself and 174 original cosponsors.
“Alan was very helpful in establishing educational benefits for veterans who completed their military obligation, and he saw to it that the educational benefits go to the actives as well as National Guard and Reserve.” Excerpt from statement of G.V. Montgomery at Memorial Tribute to Alan Cranston, U.S. Senator, 1969-1993, February 6, 2001, Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. Joint Committee on Printing, Memorial Tributes and Addresses in Eulogy of Alan Cranston, Late a Senator from California (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001), 96. The Senate document number is 107-2.
Mack G. Fleming, interview by Kehrer (co-author), February 2, 2006, and letter of January 15, 1981, from E.C. Meyer, General and Chief of Staff, United States Army, to Honorable Alan Cranston.
Mr. Fleming interview by Kehrer (co-author) and letter of February 21, 1981, from T.B. Hayward, Admiral, U.S. Navy, Chief of Naval Operations, to Honorable Alan Cranston.
Mr. Fleming interview by Kehrer (co-author) and letter of January 19, 1981, from Lew Allen, Jr., General and Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force, to Honorable Alan Cranston.
Mr. Fleming interview by Kehrer (co-author) and letter of January 13, 1981, from R.T. Barrow, General, U.S. Marine Corps, Commandant of the Marine Corps, to Honorable Alan Cranston.
Mr. Fleming interview by Kehrer (co-author) and letter of January 10, 1981, from David C. Jones, General, U.S. Air Force and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Honorable Alan Cranston.
Letter of January 15, 1981, from Robert B. Pirie, Jr., Assistant Secretary of Defense (MRA and L), to Honorable Alan Cranston.
Letters of December 31, 1980, from David Harlow of Air Force Sergeants Association and January 9, 1981, from Richard Johnson of Non Commissioned Officers Association, to Honorable Alan Cranston.
Letters of January 14, 1981, from Donald Schwab of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, and Mylio Kraja of The American Legion, to Honorable Alan Cranston.
These stated functions most likely were a reference to furnishing health care to veterans and disabled veterans. 201
Letter of January 8, 1981, from John Mallan of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, to Babette Polzer, professional staff member, Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Alan Cranston, Chairman.
When introduced in 1981, H.R. 1400 proposed a monthly educational assistance allowance of $300. VEAP’s allowance was $225.
Garrison Nelson and Clark H. Benson. As stated, this was Representative Simpson’s 2002 observation rather than the timeframe that this chapter in the text discusses. The reference document used throughout the text on Committee assignments is “Committees in the U.S. Congress 1947-1992,” Vol. 1: Committee Jurisdictions and Member Rosters, Congressional Quarterly (1993).
Convening the Mayflower Hotel commemoration were Representatives Christopher Smith, Chairman, and Lane Evans, ranking member, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Among the persons participating were former Senator Bob Dole, G.V. Montgomery, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi, Representative Mike Simpson, and American Legion National Adjutant Bob Sponogle.
Representative Simpson also was the prime author of the Jobs for Veterans Act enacted on November 7, 2002, Public Law 107-288. The act redesigned the delivery of veterans’ employment and training services by the states around themes of increased accountability, flexibility, incentives, and results. Lastly, Mr. Simpson authored the legislation that created in law Department of Labor Transition Assistance Program services to our service members serving at U.S. bases overseas, enacted as Public Law 108-183.
The authors do not support the notion that the peers of veterans are those of the same age who enter the workforce and do not pursue postsecondary education. For example, VA data shows that almost 7 of 10 of the 9.3 million Vietnam-era veterans used the GI Bill to pursue various forms of postsecondary education after separation from the military. The peers of veterans are those who pursued postsecondary education.
Mr. Matsunaga was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives before becoming a U.S. Senator.
The persons cited do not constitute a comprehensive listing.
Colonel Michael Meese, Ph.D. and head, Social Sciences Department, U.S. Military Academy, interview by Kehrer (co-author), West Point, NY, October 19, 2005. The legislative history of the Montgomery GI Bill offers numerous insights from General Thurmond on the importance of an educational incentive. Elected officials quoted him often. Observed Professor Philip B. Carter, chair of the faculty, North Carolina State University, “the late General Max Thurman who coined the greatest recruiting slogan of our time ‘Be All You Can Be,’ had the vision of nanotechnology for the soldier 25 years ago.” Statement cited at North Carolina State University, “General Faculty Meeting February 5, 2002, http://www.fis.ncsu.edu/facultysenate/05febgf.html; (accessed August 1, 2006). For an overview of General Thurman’s 37-year Army career, see http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/mthurman.html.
House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Veterans’ Educational Assistance Act of 1981, 97th Cong., 1st sess., 1981, 22. General Meyer’s name virtually is synonymous with value-added educational incentives cited in the legislative history. Elected officials often cited his views in public debate. General Meyer served one combat tour in Korea and two in Vietnam. His military career is summarized at The Association of Graduates, U.S. Military Academy: http://www.westpointaog.org.
General (Ret.) John Wickham, interview by Kehrer (co-author), January 10, 2006. The information cited in the text paragraph is secondary to General Wickham’s overall advocacy, as selected Senators quoted General Wickham frequently on the Senate floor, in legislative reports, and in other ways. Students may learn more about General John A. Wickham, Jr. at The Association of Graduates, U.S. Military Academy: http://www.aog.usma.edu/aog/awards/dga/05cit/wickham.html.
Ibid.
Cosponsoring were Senators Henry Bellmon, Rudy Boschwitz, David Durenberger, Barry Goldwater, Sam Hayakawa, Roger Jepsen, Paul Laxalt, Pat Leahy, George McGovern, and Patrick Moynihan. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Educational Incentives and the All-Volunteer Force, 96th Cong., 2nd sess., S. 2020 and S. 2596, 1980, 26, 44.
Ibid., 27. Noted Senator Cohen in this same published hearing document at 50: “The old [Vietnam-era] GI Bill helped recruit 25 to 30 percent of the volunteers entering the Armed Forces. In December 1976, the last month for the old GI Bill, a record 27, 585 youths enlisted in the Army. The year before, only about half that many—14, 173—enlisted.”
Congressional Record, March 7, 1983, 4075. During his introductory statement on S. 691, the proposed Veterans Education Assistance Act of 1983, Senator Cohen said, “It has been estimated that the old GI Bill helped recruit between 25 to 36 percent of the volunteers entering the Armed Forces. In December 1976, the last month the GI Bill was in effect, a record 27, 585 individuals enlisted in the Army alone. The approximately 100,000 youths who joined the uniformed services were about twice the normal first time enlistment.” Also, see Congressional Record, July 13, 1983, on an unsuccessful effort by Senators Armstrong and Cohen to create a new GI Bill through a Senate floor amendment (as part of the FY 1984 DoD Authorization Act) when Senator Matsunaga stated, “Second, I do not know how it can be argued that the GI Bill might have a detrimental effect on military recruiting. It has been estimated that the Vietnam-era GI Bill during the initial years of the volunteer system helped to recruit between 25 and 36 percent of the volunteers entering the Armed Forces. In December 1976, the last month the old [Vietnam-era] GI Bill was in effect, approximately 100,000 recruits joined the military services, with the Army receiving more than 27,000 enlistees. I think this more than demonstrates the great attractiveness of the GI Bill educational benefits to the recruit and the return on investment to the military.”
House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Veterans’ Educational Assistance Act of 1981, 93-96.
Public Law 95-566 “brought college loans to the middle class by removing the income limit for participation in federal aid programs.” The Brookings Institution, “Research Topics: Education/Increase Access to Post-Secondary Education,” http://brook.edu/gs/cps/research/projects/50ge/endeavors/postsecondary.html, (accessed November 28, 2006).
Ibid., 48, 51. Congressional Record, May 8, 1987, S. 6210. Senator Cohen further gave credit to the National Association of State Approving Agencies: “A number of individuals and organizations have also been essential to this effort. I cannot name them all, but there are two I would like to pay special tribute to… the Non-Commissioned Officers Association…. The other organization is the National Association of State Approving Agencies, whose president, Don Sweeney, is a constituent, serving as coordinator of veterans’ education programs for the state of Maine. Don has spent many, many hours working with me and my staff, and with the staffs of other Senate and House leaders, in this effort.” Senator Cohen also stated that “Representative Bob Wilson (R-CA) has introduced a similar measure [to mine], H.R. 4676, in the House.”
Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Educational Incentives and the All-Volunteer Force, 96th Cong., 2nd sess., S.2020 and S. 2596, 1980, 11-14 and 23-26.
Congressional Record, June 11, 1984, S15639.
Congressional Record, December 12, 1980, S33826.
Congressional Record, June 13, 1984, 16068. “Senator Armstrong entered President Reagan’s statement into the Record: ‘I will ask Congress to reinstate the GI Bill, a program which was directly responsible for the most rapid advance ever in the educational level of our population.’ Ronald Reagan, televised address to the nation, October 19, 1980.” Senator Kennedy at 16094 also quotes President Reagan: “During his address before the 1980 annual American Legion convention in my home state of Massachusetts, then-candidate [for President] Ronald Reagan stated: ‘We must provide the resources to attract and retain superior people in each of the services. We should take steps immediately to restore the GI Bill, one of the most effective, equitable, and socially important programs ever devised.’”
Office of Management and Budget, “The Mission and Structure of the Office of Management and Budget,” http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/organization/mission.html; (accessed October 21, 2006).
Office of Management and Budget, “Jobs at OMB,” http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/recruitment/index.html; (accessed October 21, 2006). “The [OMB] contains significant numbers of both career and politically appointed staff; OMB staff provide important continuity within the EOP [Executive Office of the President] since several hundred career professionals remain in their positions regardless of which party occupies the White House. Six positions within OMB—the Director, the Deputy Director, the Deputy Director for Management, and the Administrators of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, and the Office of Federal Financial Management—are Presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed (PAS) positions.”
Congressional Record, June 11, 1984, S15639.
March 17, 19, 24 and 25, and April 6 and 23, 1981. See Congressional Information Service (CIS)/Annual 1984, Legislative Histories of U.S. Public Laws, CIS/Index Legislative Histories, January-December 1984, Public Law 98-525, Department of Defense Authorization Act–1985, 98th Cong., 2nd sess., P.L. 98-525 Debate, 504.
Congressional Record, July 8, 1981, 15027. Mr. Montgomery noted the following regarding Mr. Edgar: “Mr. Speaker, Bob Edgar has worked diligently in bringing his bill through the committee. He and his subcommittee listened to well over 100 witnesses in Washington and in the field. Although H.R. 1400 was initially introduced by me, the bill as amended in committee has Bob Edgar’s stamp on and many features of the bill as amended are those recommended by him following extensive hearings.”
These were field hearings. Both Republicans, the two members most likely testified as individual members of the Armed Services Committee and encouraged the Armed Services Subcommittee to hold a hearing in their respective Congressional districts.
Congressional Record, July 8, 1981, 15027, 15028.
Ibid.
Under the Vietnam-era educational assistance program, veterans received 45 months (five academic years) of entitlement and additional subsistence allowance for each dependent. There was no service member financial contribution or buy-in to establish eligibility.
Ibid.
Ibid.
U.S. Army Chief of Staff General “Shy” Meyer notes earlier in this chapter that such attrition is high for non-high school graduates. But the 1979 GAO figure of $5.2 billion is not limited to non-high school graduates.
CIS/INDEX Legislative Histories, Department of Defense Authorization Act of 1985, January-December 1984, 504.
Beyond the beltway is a colloquial phrase used in Washington, D.C., for communities in America that are not dominated by politics and federal funding.
House Committee on Armed Services, Veterans’ Educational Assistance Act of 1982, 97th Cong., 2nd sess., 1982, 39. Page 39 notes such minor amendments (generalized here with Senate provision stated first) as the following: (1) basic benefit: education benefits paid for by VA of $200 per month versus $300 per month in the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs (HCVA)-reported version of H.R. 1400; (2) kickers: up to $400 paid for by DoD for difficult-to-recruit-for-skills with certain limitations versus no such limitations in the HCVA-reported H.R. 1400; (3) supplemental benefit: $100 per month for certain additional years of service versus $300 of such benefit in the HCVA-reported bill; (4) transferability: paid for by DoD on a discretionary and targeted basis versus entitlement for all servicemembers who complete 10 or more years of service in the HCVA-reported bill; (5) cash out paid for by DoD under various circumstances versus no similar HCVA-reported provision; (6) in-service tuition reimbursement: paid for by both DoD and VA—reduces benefit for which otherwise would be eligible with same provision in HCVA-reported bill; (7) Guard and reserves: $140 per month paid for by DoD versus no similar HCVA-reported provision; and (8) accrual funding: requires service branches to set aside funds in budget as obligation is incurred versus no similar HCVA-reported provision.
Ibid., 178, for the 40-1 full committee vote and p. 100 for the 12-1 subcommittee vote. Report number is 97-46, May 17, 1982.
Ibid., 99
Ibid., 154
House of Representatives, Mr. Nichols from the Committee on Armed Services, Report 97-80 to Accompany H.R. 1400, Part 2, May 11, 1982, Veterans’ Educational Assistance Act of 1982, 54.
Report No. 97-46, 159-160.
Died in committee is a phrase that both the proponents and opponents of a bill would be prone to use.
In introducing a bill, a member or his or her staff takes a copy of the bill to the House floor and drops it in the bill box to the right of the Speaker’s chair on the rostrum (to the left as one observes from the House floor). A bill cannot be dropped off in advance and held until the desired bill number becomes available. The bill must be introduced only on the day the desired bill number emerges. The bill clerk keeps a list of bill numbers that have been reserved. When a reserved number gets close to becoming available, the bill clerk’s office contacts the member’s office. Robert Cover, Office of the Parliamentarian, House of Representatives, interview by Kehrer (co-author), Washington, D.C., June 5, 2007.
Congressional Record, June 11, 1984, S15639.
Congressional Record, July 13, 1983, S18991.
Ibid., S19018.
Senator Armstrong and his fellow cosponsors of both S. 691 and the July 13 proposed amendment viewed themselves as being part of an informal team with their House counterparts. We note Senator Armstrong’s introductory statement on S. 691: “As before, the Armstrong-Cohen-Matsunaga bill is a carefully thought out compromise which blends the best features of GI bill proposals introduced by Senators Cohen, Hollings, and myself in the 97th Congress, and which is compatible with the provisions of H.R. 1400, the leading GI Bill proposal in the House of Representatives.” Congressional Record, March 7, 1983, 4074.
Congressional Record, March 7, 1983, S4073-6.
The five issues are based on readings of the debate in the July 13, 1983, Congressional Record, S18991 to S19018. Examples of the issues are furnished in the next five notes. The debate was not without interesting personal observations by Senators. With respect to the political issues that emerged in the debate, Senator Simpson humored his colleagues, as recorded at S19003: “I would only share with you that I have the flickering of something like: Woe is me, the emaciated form of the chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, speaking against the peacetime GI bill; the hint of, again, muffled drums on the parade ground. The decommissioning ceremonies will be cranking up again. I can hear them now.” And with respect to the cost of the amendment, Senator Domenici shared with fellow Senators, as recorded at S19011…. “Many members in this Senate who are prone to vote for this are constantly, persistently, consistently saying the problem with the U.S. budget is the entitlement programs, which are out of control. Once you create them, you cannot do anything about them. They are automatic. Presidents cannot veto them. Appropriators cannot do anything with them. If you are entitled to a benefit, you get it. If you have the right color eyes, the right stature, the right age, they will write you a check. That is what an entitlement is.” Lastly, with respect to the need for the amendment, Senator Cohen shared with Senators, as recorded at S4074 on March 7, 1983, when he joined with Senator Armstrong in introducing S. 691: “In the mid-1970s, Congress and the administration looked at the All-Volunteer Force (AVF), saw how well it was doing, and, with a feeling of confidence, dealt a series of body blows to it which almost put it in its grave. The AVF is doing so well, the reasoning went, that we can cap pay, end the GI bill, and reduce recruiting and advertising money. Those actions, coupled with the Pentagon’s implementation of a new recruit qualification test which was incorrectly calibrated, proved disastrous. By the late 1970s, the number of high school graduates entering the Army had plummeted and the percentage of Category IV recruits, the lowest accepted into the service, had sky rocketed.”
As noted in the debate at S19008 and S19015, July 13, 1983, Congressional Record, Chairman Tower and Senator Denton, respectively, thought it inappropriate for Senator Armstrong, et. al. to bring the bill to the floor in the form of an amendment without having had hearings on the measure in the Armed Services Committee. Conversely, also at S19008, Senator Cohen and others thought it appropriate that Chairman Tower scheduled no hearings on the Armstrong amendment, as Cohen and Armstrong introduced such legislation in 1979 and in subsequent years.
As noted in the debate at S19007 and S19011, Senators Exon and Domenici, respectively, argued that Congress fixed past military pay issues that had hurt recruitment and that 1983 military recruitment and retention issues were not problematical. Conversely, at S18998 and S19009, Senators Armstrong and Matsunaga, respectively, argued that due to demographics and economic issues, by 1987 military recruiting and the All-Volunteer Force would be in jeopardy, absent a quality educational incentive.
As noted in the debate at S19005, Senator Simpson observed that the United States had never enacted a GI Bill educational assistance program for the purpose of military recruitment and retention; past GI Bill programs helped veterans readjust to civilian life after service in a war period. Conversely, Senator Matsunaga at S19010 argued that a GI Bill for recruiting purposes was needed to avoid a peacetime draft.
As noted in the debate at S19011, Senator Domenici argued that that the federal deficit and entitlement programs (such as a permanent GI Bill Senator Armstrong proposed) were out of control. Conversely, at S19010, Senator Matsunaga argued that Congress was considering too many costly weapons systems that may not be essential to our national security.
As noted in the debate at S19008, Senator Tower observed that he wouldn’t vote for the Armstrong amendment simply because doing so would be politically popular in Texas with its many military bases and veterans. Conversely, also at S19008, Senator Cohen observed that the Armstrong amendment he (Senator Cohen) cosponsored was not politically motivated and that he introduced similar legislation in 1979 when he was not running for re-election, the first year of his service in the Senate.
Late Spring 1984—Road to Enactment: House Passes a New GI Bill Unopposed
Congressional Information Service (CIS)/Annual 1984, Legislative Histories of U.S. Public Laws, CIS/Index Legislative Histories, January–December 1984, Public Law 98-525, Department of Defense Authorization Act, 1985, 98th Cong., 2nd sess., P.L. 98-525 Hearings, 504.
See Mr. Edgar’s statement at 12295, May 15, 1984, Congressional Record: “During the 97th Congress [1981-1982]… my subcommittee conducted a minimum of eight hearings on the bill [H.R. 1400, The Veterans’ Educational Assistance Act of 1982].” The April 12, 1983, hearing actually was part of the 98th Congress. It was titled “Proposals to Establish a New Educational Assistance Program for Veterans and Members of the Armed Forces, and Review of the Veterans’ Educational Assistance Program (VEAP).” CIS/Index Legislative Histories, January-December 1984, 505.
House Committee on Armed Services, Department of Defense Authorization Act, 1985, 1984, H.R. 5167, 262-265.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Cong. Inf. Serv., 98th Cong., 2nd sess., 1984, P.L. 98-525 Debate, 504.
Congressional Record, Index Volume 130, part 24, January 23, 1984, L-2 and History of Bills, 2425.
The authors reviewed the content of 81 documented instances in the Congressional Record in which H.R. 5167 was discussed, debated, or amended in the House and found no opposition to a New GI Bill. The pages in which such instances appear begin on H5691 and end on H14680 of the 1984 Congressional Record. Congressional Record, Index Volume 130, part 124, January 23, 1984, to October 12, L-Z and History of Bills, 2425. At 11463 and 11464 of the May 30 Record, Representative Barney Frank engages Mr. Montgomery in a discussion regarding extending, under certain circumstances, the 10-year eligibility period under the Vietnam-era GI Bill. Mr. Montgomery pledges public hearings on the matter, but this was not a New GI Bill issue.
Congressional Record, May 15, 1984, 12296.
Ibid., 12286.
Congressional Record, May 15, 1984, 12266-12267.
The Senate had not adopted the first concurrent budget resolution on the fiscal year 1985 budget, either. See Senate debate in this regard in Chapter 9.
Congressional Record, May 15, 1984, H12267.
Students will note that when the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee had its committee-passed bills on the House floor for a vote that the regular rules were suspended by agreement of both the House majority and minority parties. Under suspension of the rules, no amendments were permitted. For House consideration of the FY 1985 DoD Authorization Act, the opposite was true. Under the open rule, amendments were permitted and, in fact, dozens were offered during debate on the bill from April 19 to May 31, 1984.
Summer 1984—Road to Enactment: Senate Passes Glenn Test Citizen-Soldier Education Program 96 to 1—First Vote
John Glenn became a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee in the 99th Congress, at which time he had served in the U.S. Senate for 11 years. The 99th Congress commenced in January 1985. Garrison Nelson and Clark H. Benson, “Committees in the U.S. Congress 1947-1992,” Vol. 1: Committee Jurisdictions and Member Rosters, Congressional Quarterly, (1993): 52.
THOMAS (Library of Congress), “S. 2723,” http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d098:SN02723:@@@Z, (accessed January 16, 2006). “S. 2723. Title: An original bill to authorize appropriations for the military functions of the Department of Defense and to prescribe personnel levels for the Department of Defense for fiscal year 1985. Sponsor: Tower, John [TX] (introduced 5/31/1984) Cosponsors (None), Latest Major Action, 6/21/1984 Senate floor actions. Status: Indefinitely postponed by Unanimous Consent. Floor Action 5/31/84 Reported to Senate from the Committee on Armed Services, S. Rept. 98-500, 5/31/1984 Placed on Calendar in Senate… 6/11/1984 Measure considered in Senate… 6/13/84 Measure considered in Senate. Thomas also notes the following: “The Senate considered the Glenn and Armstrong amendments on 6/11/84 and 6/13/84. However, on another THOMAS Internet site with the same identifier as above except for the last four digits (@@@S) appears the following wording: ‘ALL ACTIONS: 5/24/1984: Committee on Armed Services ordered to be reported an original measure in lieu of S. 2414, S.2364, and S. 2459.’”
The act carries the same name each year while substituting the appropriate fiscal year.
Congressional Record, June 13, 1984, S16085. “Federal Legislative History: A Quick Guide to Reference Sources.”
Congressional Record, June 11, 1984, S15628-15642 and Congressional Record June 13, 1984, S16060. Since these pages are the only source of Senatorial debate in this chapter, the authors have not provided endnotes for each Senator’s statement each time he or she speaks. However, the authors do endnote the page of the Congressional Record that records a vote when a vote occurs.
United States Senate, “Reference Home/Glossary,” http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/b_three_sections_with_teasers/glossary.html; (accessed September 11, 2008). “The Daily Digest is the key to finding information in the Congressional Record. It is much like a table of contents in a book, but is found in the back of each daily edition of the Record. The permanent edition of the Record includes a Daily Digest volume which cumulates each issue for the year. Chamber and committee activities are summarized separately for the Senate and House. Measures introduced and passed, amendment activity, appointments, nominations, and roll call votes from the previous meetings are listed with page numbers to those actions within the Record’s full text.”
Not taking a vote was a professional courtesy that Senators Glenn, Tower, and Nunn extended to Senator Armstrong, given Mr. Armstrong’s absence.
Language such as Conclusion of Morning Business in this and the next two chapters is verbatim from the Congressional Record of June 11 and June 13, 1984.
John Tower represented Texas in the United States Senate from 1961 to 1985. His career in public service included appointments as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, chair of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and strategic nuclear arms negotiator with the Soviet Union. The John G. Tower Congressional papers are housed at the A. Frank Smith, Jr. Library Center, Southwestern University, Georgetown, TX. Southern Methodist University sponsors the John Goodin Tower Center for Political Studies and the Tower Center Teaching Fellows Program.
Amendment No. language of this type in this and the next two chapters is also verbatim from the Congressional Record.
The Senator Glenn amendment language consumes pages 15630-15632 of the June 11, 1984, Congressional Record. Senator Tower’s perfecting amendment to the Glenn amendment made the Glenn-proposed Citizen-Soldier Educational Assistance Program, a pilot (test) program limited to 12,500 enlistees.
Assuming the Chair means that the Senator was now presiding over the debate from the chair and is addressed as “Mr. President” or “Madam President.” In the House, the presiding officer is addressed as “Mr. Speaker” or “Madam Speaker.” Only members of the majority party preside over debate in both the House and Senate.
As a general matter, in this debate, the Senate referred to bill in lower case. Conversely, the House generally would capitalize the first letter.
The Congressional Record for Senate debate generally spells a Senator’s name in uppercase letters when making reference to the senator. The authors do not do so here.
Senate Committee on Armed Services, Omnibus Defense Authorization Act of 1985 —Report to Accompany S.2723, 98th Cong., 2nd sess., 1985, 516.
As a general matter, again in this debate the Senate referred to “new” GI Bill in lowercase. The House generally would capitalize the first letter, as in “New” GI Bill.
The authors make reference to this vote at the end of Chapter 5. The Armstrong amendment failed 52 to 46 in some part because the Senate Armed Services Committee had not taken testimony on his bill, S. 691.
The Senator Alan Simpson alternative proposal essentially was one to establish a high-level study. The alternative “would have required the President to report to Congress at such time as he determines that there are recruitment and retention problems in the Armed Forces that are contrary to the national interest, but in no event later than July 1, 1987, as to the nature and extent of those problems and the usefulness of the new educational assistance program in addressing them.” Congressional Record, June 11, 1984, S15637.
This bill is referenced at the “Legislative Journey guide” on pages 10-11.
Congressional Record, June 11, 1984, S15639.
Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Hearing on Educational Incentives and the All-Volunteer Force (S.2020 and S.2596 and all related bills), 96th Cong., 2nd sess., 1980, 11-14 and 23-26.
Sam Nunn went on to serve as co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a charitable organization working to reduce the global threats from nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Mr. Nunn served as an United States Senator for 24 years (1972-1996). In addition to his work with NTI, Senator Nunn has continued his service in the public policy arena as a distinguished professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Institute of Technology and as chairman of the board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
Congress terminated the Vietnam-era GI Bill on December 31, 1976, as the Vietnam Conflict had concluded and the United States no longer drafted young men into its military. Initially, Congress did not appear to believe it owed a GI Bill-type educational assistance program to volunteers in the all-volunteer force that took effect on January 1, 1973. However, Congress would create the Post-Vietnam-era Educational Assistance Program in this regard.
Students may observe an actual roll call vote on C-SPAN.
Congressional Record, June 13, 1984, S16060.
Students may also wish to note the exceptionally formal and courteous language used by Senators during floor debate. Decorum, professionalism, and civility are important.
Summer 1984—Road to Enactment:
Senate Fails to Table Armstrong Peacetime Veterans’ Educational Assistance Act 51 to 46—Second Vote
This chapter of the text is drawn verbatim from various statements of U.S. Senators during the debate, as expressed at pages S16060 to S16095. Because the debate as expressed in the June 13, 1984, Congressional Record is the only source of each statement, each individual statement does not have an endnote. However, we do endnote the recorded votes.
As a general matter, we do not include in the text instances of the presiding officer recognizing a Senator to speak except at the beginning of a chapter of text or when a Senator asks the Chair for a vote on a measure.
The Chair and the Presiding Officer are the same person.
The Congressional Record does not document or state the name of the Senator who seconds a motion.
This appears to be a reference to the senior Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy.
The Army furnished the additional $8,000-$12,000 in each instance. In 1984, the Army was the only service branch to develop a special educational fund of this type to augment VEAP.
Ballard and Piper, Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran’s Champion, 206. Mr. Weinberger consented to an interview for this book but passed away in 2006 prior to the interview. In 2003, Ballard and Piper quoted Mr. Weinberger with respect to Mr. Montgomery retiring from Congress after 30 years: “I was sorry indeed to learn of your decision to leave the Congress next year, but of course can completely understand it. However, I could not let the event pass without writing to tell you how deeply I have appreciated not only your many personal kindnesses and friendship to me, but the really great service you have performed for the country…. You were always a strong, clear voice for the kind of legislation and kind of moral support that our troops need. I was deeply grateful to you then and am still.”
Mr. Montgomery and colleagues agreed with Senator Simpson on this statement of fact but for a different reason. Both felt a paradigm shift was in order. Senator Simpson and colleagues believed that since the United States never had a so-called permanent, peacetime GI bill that we should not have one now. Montgomery and colleagues used essentially the same argument as the reason the United States should have one now. Nonetheless, Simpson and Montgomery had a good relationship. Alan Simpson attended the White House signing ceremony when President Reagan signed H.R. 1085, as amended, creating the Montgomery GI Bill in 1987. Like George H.W. Bush, Alan Simpson liked to joust with Montgomery: “With Sonny here, another dear friend on the other side of the aisle…. Sonny used to sit next to me [at public events with veterans’ organizations, for example] and say: ‘Don’t do it, pal. I know what you’re going to do. Just shut up, won’t you?’ I know we’re not going to let that get away now, Sonny.” Excerpt from statement of Alan Simpson at Memorial Tribute to Alan Cranston, U.S. Senator, 1969-1993, February 6, 2002, Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC. Joint Committee on Printing, Memorial Tributes and Addresses in Eulogy of Alan Cranston, Late a Senator from California (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2001), 84.
Senator Nunn seemed to be referring to the Army College Fund.
Air-Launched Anti-Satellite Missile, a unique U.S. Air Force space vehicle. This weapon was designed to destroy orbiting satellites that threaten the U.S.
Senator Armstrong is referring to the peacetime period from the conclusion of the Vietnam Conflict in 1973 until December 31, 1976. Persons entering our military during this period were eligible for the Vietnam-era GI Bill, even though the conflict was over. Their eligibility occurred largely in the absence of an intervening GI Bill policy decision by Congress.
Alan Cranston, Congressional Record, June 11, 1984, S15640. S. 1747 to which Senator Pressler refers “was introduced on August 3, 1983, by Senators Armstrong, Cohen, Hollings, Matsunaga, and Cranston and which is [was] cosponsored by Senators Bradley, D’Amato, DeConcini, Dole, Hart, Hawkins, Kasten, Kennedy, Mitchell, Boschwitz, and Pressler. The amendment would amend Title 38, United States Code, to establish two new programs of educational assistance designed to assist the Armed Forces in recruiting and retaining highly qualified men and women.”
Congressional Record, June 13, 1984, S16095.
Summer 1984—
Road to Enactment: Senate Passes Amended Glenn Citizen-Solider Test Education Program 72 to 20—After Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Votes
The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-344).
The selected floor debate as contained in this chapter may be found at pages S16095 to S16107 of the June 13, 1984, Congressional Record. As stated earlier, the authors have noted the pages in which a vote occurred.
Federal budget function 050 is national defense.
A major part of the Annual Budget Resolution is to identify new areas of direct spending based on new legislation, especially entitlements. As the majority leader noted, the Senate had not yet adopted a budget resolution for fiscal year 1985 so there was no spending blueprint for the Senate Appropriations Committee to follow. In the annual Congressional budget resolution process, the various authorizing committees (including Armed Services) mark up a proposed new fiscal year budget first, then the Budget Committee and the full Senate do so. Finally, the Appropriations Committee does so. The House follows the same process.
This appears to be a reference to the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which Senator Domenici will discuss specifically later in this chapter.
The authors regret we have been unable to determine the name of the $21 billion and $23 billion entitlement programs to which Mr. Domenici refers.
Six and one-half hours into the debate, the Senate had taken two of the five votes.
Senator Goldwater admirably tried to take a middle-of-the-road position here between the Armstrong advocates and the Tower advocates. He attempted to mediate. One of the more popular sayings regarding a middle-of-the-road position is attributed to Representative Jim Hightower, a populist Democrat from Texas: “The only things in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead armadillos!” “Fate of Two Joes Reflects Drive for Partisan Purity,” USA Today, August 10, 2006.
Congressional Record, June 13, 1984, S16104.
Ibid., S16105.
James Dykstra, interview by Kehrer (co-author), Washington, D.C., January 23, 2007. Students will note that Vice President George H. W. Bush had assumed the chair as presiding officer of the Senate. It would appear the Vice President was presiding in anticipation of close votes in the next section of the debate on President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, the MX missile, and the like.
Ibid., S16106.
Of the 46 Senators who voted to table the Armstrong amendment the first time (Congressional Record, June 13, 1984, S16095), all voted to table it the second time (Congressional Record, June 13, 1984, S16106); but with the addition of Senators Gorton, Kassebaum, and Johnston (who initially voted not to table it) and Senators Stafford and Bumpers (who didn’t vote the second time but voted to table it the first time). So the second vote netted 47 votes to table. Of the 51 Senators who voted not to table the Armstrong amendment the first time, Senators Gorton, Kassebaum, and Johnston switched their votes (as stated above). Plus, Senators Tsongas, Kennedy and Weicker (who initially voted not to table it) didn’t vote the second time. So the second vote netted 45 votes to table. At S16106, Senator Stevens announced that “if present and voting, the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Kasten) would have voted ‘nay’; thus yielding 46 votes not to table, but still one vote short of the 47 votes to table.”
Ibid., S16108. Illustrative of the stark contrast between consideration of a New GI Bill—as part of the FY 1985 DoD Authorization Act—and other necessary provisions of the act was the next item for Senate consideration: “Cost-effective funding of nuclear weapons.”
The authors discussed in Chapter 3 of our text that the House and Senate Committees on Veterans’ Affairs often used a staff negotiation process rather than a formal House-Senate Conference Committee to negotiate House-Senate-passed bills. The New GI Bill aspect of the FY 1985 Omnibus DoD Authorization Act was under the jurisdiction of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, which hold formal conferences.
Fall 1984—Road to Enactment: House-Senate Conference on the FY 1985 DoD Authorization Act
Kim Wincup, interview by Kehrer (co-author), McLean, VA, June 1, 2006.
The G.V. Montgomery tribute to Mack Gerald Fleming, longstanding confidant, appears in the April 6, 1995, Congressional Record at E823. In addition to Montgomery acknowledging Mr. Fleming for “his intuitive sense of timing and ability to reach an effective compromise” is the credit Montgomery gives to his chief counsel for the legislation enacted into law that elevated the Veterans’ Administration to cabinet status and legislation creating a New GI Bill. (Montgomery did not use the word “Montgomery” regarding the GI Bill, even though Congress named it in his honor.) Most instructive about Mr. Fleming and his “extraordinary career in public service” is what Montgomery said about the man himself: “We all know Mack thrived in and was energized by the rough and tumble of politics, and he loved nothing better than a good fight on behalf of a cause he championed. He nevertheless was not swallowed up or overwhelmed by the sometimes heady Capitol Hill existence. There was something in his background or the way he was raised that kept him solidly grounded, and that made the difference: the difference between a boastful person and one whom people boast of knowing; the difference between a cynical man and one who only sees the good he can do for other people; and the difference between a man who looks for credit for his accomplishment and a man who accomplishes much.” Lastly, persons who have worked with Mr. Fleming likely would appreciate the following Montgomery statement: “Serene is not a word I associate with Mack, but he never retreated from the consequences of his conviction.”
“Joint Explanatory Statement (JES) of the Committee of Conference on H.R. 5167, the FY 1985 DoD Authorization Act,” September 26, 1984, 179. The JES is part of Conference Rep. No. 98-1080.
House Committee on Armed Services, Department of Defense Authorization Act of 1985, 1984, H.R. 5167, 262-265. Report Together with Additional and Dissenting Views to Accompany H.R. 5167.
Senate Committee on Armed Services, Omnibus Defense Authorization Act, 1985-Report to Accompany S. 2723, 98th Cong., 2nd sess., 1985, S. Rep. 98-500.
Cong. Inf. Serv., Department of Defense Authorization Act of 1985, 98th Cong., 2nd sess., P.L. 98-525 Debate, 504.
For example, Congressman Dellums led an effort “to strike all procurement funding ($7.1 billion) for the B-1B Bomber and to delay any further development of ground-launched cruise missiles or Pershing II missiles in Western Europe… the Bennett-Mavroules amendment to delete all production funds for the MX missiles…. The Weiss amendment to delete research and development for the Trident II/D5 missile…. The Brown amendment to halt anti-satellite weapon flight test in space… and the Bethune-Porter-Fascell amendment to delete all production money for chemical weapons.” Walter Fauntroy, Congressional Record, May 16, 1984, 12503. Also at 12503, Delegate Fauntroy notes that “in 1953, Dwight David Eisenhower warned: ‘Every gun that is made, every warship that is launched, every rocket fired, signifies a theft for those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.’”
For example, “Speaker Jim Wright (D-TX) on 8 February 1988… announced that the first person to say the Pledge of Allegiance on the House Floor would be Representative Sonny Montgomery (D-MS) and that it would rotate Democrat then Republican each day to recite the Pledge. The first Pledge done by Mr. Montgomery was recited the next legislative day, which was on 13 September 1988.” Baptist minister Francis Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance on September 7, 1892. President Benjamin Franklin Harrison recognized the pledge with a proclamation on October 12, 1892, stating that the pledge was to be first used in public schools. The History of the Pledge of Allegiance, Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives, September 7, 2006.
Charles W. Johnson, interview by Kehrer (co-author), Washington, D.C., March 20, 2008. Mr. Wincup observed that many held this view about Mr. Montgomery’s leadership, including Charles W. Johnson, Parliamentarian of the House. Mr. Johnson served with distinction in the Office of the Parliamentarian for 40 years beginning in May 1964, including 10 years as Parliamentarian under the appointments of three successive Speakers. The House of Representatives resolution honoring Mr. Johnson, as well as Speaker Hastert’s personal tribute, may be viewed in the May 20, 1994, Congressional Record at H3394 and successive pages.
CIS Index of Legislative Histories, January-December 1984, 504.
House Committee on Armed Services, Conference Report to Accompany H.R. 5167, Department of Defense Authorization Act of 1985, 1984, H.R. 5167, 352-354. Pages 352 and 353 lists 13 members from the House Armed Services Committee. Page 354 lists 18 members from the Senate Armed Services Committee. Page 354 also lists nine additional House members, appointed as part of the conference for discussion of the New GI Bill provision and two additional Senators for same. The “Calendars of the United States House of Representatives and History of Legislation, Final Edition, 98th Congress” confirms on pages 2-14 “Bills Through Conference” that Simpson and Cranston served as conferees “soley for consideration of any benefits to be paid by VA.” On pages 2-15, the Calendars publication notes the following House conferees “soley for consideration of Title VII of the House bill and Sec. 1606 of the Senate amendment: Edwards of California, Edgar, Sam B. Hall, Jr. of Texas, Leath of Texas, Shelby, Applegate, Hammerschmidt, Wylie, and Solomon. The nine House conferees and the two Senate conferees listed in ‘Calendars’ are the same individuals who signed the ‘Conference Report.’”
Ibid. Most of these weapons systems are part of Title I-Procurement or Title II-Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation.
Conference Report No. 98-1080.
Ballad and Piper, Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran’s Champion, 74. Mr. David Lyles, then a principal staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, expressed a different view regarding Chairperson Tower scheduling the GI Bill issue as the last item. David Lyles, interview by Kehrer (co-author), Washington, D.C., July 11, 2006. Observed Mr. Lyles: “The GI Bill matter would have been discussed before the final negotiating session of the conference. The GI Bill was part of the final session because conferees could not come to agreement during earlier discussions of it.”
Congressional Record, June 11, 1984, S15638. Observed Senator Tower regarding the June 11, 1984 “debate” before the formal debate on the proposed amendment itself: “We have looked into the matter of the GI Bill quite a bit. It is our view that it is not cost-effective at this time. But I also have the very pragmatic view that something is likely to pass and I want to minimize the budget impact.”
The 31 members from the House and Senate Armed Services Committees were appointed for the full bill plus 11 more from the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees for the New GI Bill provisions. See note 11 above.
Congressional Record, June 13, 1984, S16089-90. The authors repeat for the reader one of the Alan Simpson quotes here as well: “It cannot be emphasized strongly enough that this is not a GI Bill like any previous GI Bills. The goal in the past has always been to assist veterans to readjust to civilian life after service in a period of war. No GI Bill has ever been enacted solely in order to assist the Armed Forces in recruitment and retention.”
Mack Fleming, interview by Kehrer (co-author), February 2, 2006, and October 28, 2010.
Congressional Record, June 21, 1984, 17708-17709. Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O’Neill appointed House conferees on H.R. 5167, Department of Defense Authorization Act of 1985 on June 21, 1984.
Pages 352 and 353 of the Conference Report on H.R. 5167. House Report No. 98-1080.
Ballard and Piper, Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran’s Champion, 73-74. Mr. Fleming’s observation is also confirmed by the following: “I [Montgomery] immediately asked the Speaker of the House to name additional conferees from the Veterans’ Affairs Committee so that each Committee would have the same number…. The Speaker permitted me to do this.”
See previous note 11 and Congressional Record, June 25, 1984, 18536.
See previous note 11: Representatives Don Edwards, Bob Edgar, Sam B. Hall, Jr., Marvin Leath, Richard Shelby, Douglas Applegate, John Paul Hammerschmidt, Chalmers P. Wylie, and Gerald B.H. Solomon.
The Parliamentarian organizationally is part of the Speaker’s office. For information on Parliamentarians of the House 1857 to present, see U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Clerk, “House History—Parliamentarians of the House,” http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/house_history/parliamentarians.html; (accessed September 25, 2008).
The proxie shown in the visual is for illustrative purposes. It is a proxie Representative John Paul Hammerschmidt furnished Chairman Montgomery for a July 15, 1985, House-Senate Armed Services Committee Conference on S. 1160, the proposed National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1986, which the authors discuss at the end of this chapter. The proxies applied only to discussion of section 522 on New GI Bill program matters.
Congressional Record, May 15, 1984, 12285. Mr. Montgomery expressed his thanks to Chairman Price and ranking member Dickinson for this opportunity in part through Mr. Montgomery’s support for H.R. 5167, the Fiscal Year 1985 DoD Authorization Act.
Edgar Potter, Cowboy Slang, (Phoenix: Golden West History, 1986), 46.
Honorable John Marsh, interview by Kehrer (co-author), Culpeper, VA, August 26, 2005. Then-Secretary of the Army John Marsh said he “may” have furnished the MREs in the interest of helping conferees come to closure on a meaningful educational incentive.
Ballard and Piper, Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran’s Champion, 74. Staff were intrigued at conferees eating MREs. Karen Heath, interview by Kehrer (co-author), Arlington, VA, January 2, 2006. Observed Ms. Heath of the House Armed Services Committee majority staff: “I must say, I was surprised to see the venerable Senator Warner, for example, squeezing peanut butter onto a cracker from a metal tin!” Ms. Heath would serve as assistant secretary of the Navy after her service on the House Armed Services Committee.
Interview by Kehrer (co-author) with person present at the House-Senate Conference, June 20, 2006; name withheld by mutual agreement.
Anthony Principi, interview by Kehrer (co-author), June 27, 2006. John Sullivan, interview by Kehrer (coauthor), Washington, D.C., December 27, 2007.
Mack Fleming, interview by Kehrer (co-author), February 2, 2006.
Ron Dellums represented California’s 9th District in Congress from 1971 to 1998. He served in a number of leadership positions in Congress, including chairman, House Services Committee, 1995-1996. Mr. Dellums is an U.S. Marine Corps veteran and administers the Ronald V. Dellums Chair in Peace and Conflict Studies at University of California at Berkeley.
Mack Fleming, interview by Kehrer (co-author), October 28, 2010.
See Chapters 7-9.
Mack Fleming, interview, by Kehrer (co-author), February 2, 2006, and October 28, 2010.
Ballard and Piper, Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran’s Champion, 75.
James Dykstra, interview by Kehrer (co-author), Washington, D.C., June 7, 2006.
Anthony Principi, interview by Kehrer (co-author), June 27, 2006. G.V. Montgomery, interview, by Kehrer (coauthor), Meridian, MS, December 15, 2004.
Ballard and Piper, Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran’s Champion, 75.
Ibid.
Ibid.
G.V. Montgomery, interview by Kehrer (co-author), Meridian, MS, December 15, 2004.
Ballard and Piper, Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran’s Champion, 76.
HCVA Internal Historical File on the Montgomery GI Bill. Senator William S. Cohen corroborates the 2 a.m. timeframe in a March 14, 1986, letter to G.V. Montgomery: “I’m hopeful that we’ll be as successful as we were at the 2 a.m. session a couple years ago.”
We believe the date was September 25 because Mr. Montgomery points out in Ballard and Piper at 77 that “at that hour, with the conference agreement going to the floor for a vote the next day [September 26]… the 1984 CIS/INDEX of Legislative Histories, Public Law 98-525, at 504 shows the House agreeing to the conference report on the FY 1985 DoD Authorization Act (P.L. 98-525) on September 26. The conference report to accompany H.R. 5167 on this act was ordered to be printed September 26, 1984, Rep. No. 98-1080.
Ibid., 77.
Congressional Record, March 19, 1987, H1498. For example, noted Mr. Montgomery on the House floor, March 19, 1987: “Mr. Bob Cover of the Legislative Counsel’s office did all the drafting of the first bill I introduced in January 1981, H.R. 1400. Mr. Joe Womack of the Legislative Counsel’s office did all of the drafting of H.R. 1085 and legislation enacted last year to improve the program. If the New GI Bill is made permanent, Bob Cover and Joe Womack will have played a major role in helping to bring about this new education program for our armed services. It is fitting that Bob and Joe are members of the team since they are responsible for a lot of legislation that comes out of the House Armed Services Committee, as well as the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs…. I’m also grateful to Mr. Hugh Evans, Senate legislative counsel, who worked with Bob in putting together the conference agreement as part of the DoD Authorization Act of 1984.”
Karen Heath, interview by Kehrer (co-author), Arlington, VA, January 2, 2006. Mr. Montgomery is speaking to the mechanics of the legislative drafting process, as it very much involved professional staff of the Armed Services and Veterans’ Affairs Committees and the House and Senate Offices of Legislative Counsel.
Ibid. Mr. Montgomery again is speaking to the mechanics of the drafting process.
Congressional Record, September 27, 1984, 27437. As is discussed later in this chapter, Mr. Cranston observed the following: “I very much regret the way that this matter was handled [in conference] and the outcome that Mr. Montgomery had to accept at the 11th hour in order to salvage the entire conference report…. I still believe he was not treated properly on this issue.”
Ballard and Piper, Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran’s Champion, 77. Mr. Wincup, Ms. Heath, and Mr. Fleming had the same recollection as Mr. Montgomery. Kim Wincup, interview by Kehrer (co-author), June 1, 2006. Karen Heath, interview by Kehrer (co-author), January 2, 2006. Mack Fleming, interview by Kehrer (co-author), February 2, 2006.
Ballard and Piper, Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran’s Champion, 77.
Senator Alan Cranston addresses this matter from the Senate floor at S27427 of the September 27, 1984, Congressional Record.
Ballard and Piper, Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran’s Champion, 77.
See page 27241 of the Congressional Record, September 26, 1984, for the record of conferees presenting the conference report to House members and subsequent discussion and agreement.
See page 27304 of the Congressional Record, September 27, 1984, for the record of conferees presenting the conference report to the Senate and discussion/agreement. Also, see Congressional Record, Index, Volume 130 – Part 24, January 23, 1984, to October 12, 1984, L-Z and History of Bills (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984) at 2425 for an extensive listing of dates associated with H.R. 5167, a bill to authorize appropriations for Fiscal Year 1985 for the armed forces.
Congressional Record, September 26, 1984, 27304.
Ballard and Piper, Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran’s Champion, 74. Observed Mr. Montgomery: “The House and Senate conferees met to work out differences between the two bodies on the Authorization bill. What a conference it was—unlike any I had ever attended during my tenure in the House.”
Congressional Record, September 27, 1984, 27428.
Ibid., 27428 and 27429. Senator Nunn thanked staff of the Armed Services Committee: majority staff members Jim McGovern and Arnold Punaro and minority staff members Bill Hoehn, Jeff Smith, David Lyles, John Hamre, Russell Miller, Patty Watson, Pam Powell, Cathy Bognovitz, Shelley Turner, and Debbie Paige-Dubose.
Ibid., 27428.
Ibid., 27427. Senator Cranston acknowledged majority staff members of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee: Jon Steinberg, Ed Scott, and Babette Polzer; minority staff member Tony Principi; and majority staff of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Mack Fleming, Frank Stover, Richard Schultz, and Jill Cochran.
Ballard and Piper, Sonny Montgomery: The Veteran’s Champion, 77.
The description of the compromise agreement between the conferees appears at pages 306-307 of the Conference Report on H.R. 5167, as cited earlier. This description became the basis for the new educational assistance provision in the conference version of the legislation signed by the President after the House and Senate concurred in the conference report. Public Papers of The Presidents of the United States, Ronald Reagan, 1984 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1984), 1582 of Book II. In signing H.R. 5167 into law, President Reagan made no reference to the New GI Bill program. President Reagan offered the following tribute to Chairman Tower: “There is one Senator whose contributions to our nation’s defense over the years has been unique and enduring—that Senator is John Tower. The final passage of this Defense Authorization Act marks one of the last milestones in a legislative career spanning nearly 24 years in the Senate. His lasting contributions, and especially those during his outstanding service as chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, bear the mark of a true statesman and an extraordinary American. We can only hope that he will not consider his retirement from the Senate to be a retirement from public life. Thank you, John.”
A copy of this letter appears in the HCVA Internal Historical File on the Montgomery GI Bill.
“The New GI Bill and the New Army College Fund,” Brochure, U.S. Army, 1985; “New GI Bill Plus Army College Fund,” News Release, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs), No. 112-85, March 1, 1985; “New GI Bill to Begin July 1, 1985,” News release, Veterans Administration, Office of Public and Consumer Affairs, Washington, DC, June 17, 1985. However, the New GI Bill plus the Army College Fund would produce benefits of $25, 200. The Army College Fund was available to enlistees who were “a high school graduate, score 50 or more on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, and enlist for… training in one of 80 selected Army specialties.”
National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics 2002 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, June 2003), 354.
Fiscal Year 1986 would begin on October 1, 1985.
Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Report to Accompany H.R. 752, New GI Bill Amendments of 1985, 99th Cong., 1st sess., 1985, 6. This committee made some amendments to the House-passed bill but still embraced the House’s major provisions. The Senate Committee on Veteran’s Affairs legislative activity occurred after the House action. The report of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs to accompany H.R. 752 is No. 99-1, March 7, 1985. The report of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) to accompany H.R. 752 is No. 99-17, part 2, March 20, 1985. The HASC referred to the amendments made by H.R. 752 as “New GI Bill Amendments of 1985.”
1985 CIS Annual Abstracts of Congressional Publications, CIS/Index, January-December 1985, 552.
Frank Murkowski chaired the committee, and Alan Cranston was ranking member.
Barry Goldwater chaired the committee, and Sam Nunn was ranking member.
HCVA Internal Historical File on the Montgomery GI Bill. File includes 1985 letters of April 12 from Sam Nunn to G.V. Montgomery, April 12 from Barry Goldwater and Sam Nunn to Majority Leader Bob Dole, April 23 from Barry Goldwater to G.V. Montgomery, and June 26 from Frank Murkowski and Alan Cranston to Majority Leader Bob Dole. There is also a May 21, 1985, letter from Mr. Murkowski and Mr. Cranston of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs to Barry Goldwater, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee regarding “outside conferees” to the House-Senate conference committee for consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1986 regarding section 522.
Mack Fleming to G.V. Montgomery, memorandum, August 12, 1985, HCVA Internal Historical File on the Montgomery GI Bill.
Alan Cranston, Congressional Record, June 5, 1985, S7517-S7518.
In his June 5, 1995, statement cited above, Senator Cranston explains the lack of support for the amendments approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee. For example, the test program automatically enrolled the service member in the New GI Bill unless the service member specifically disenrolled, as many service members later would regret not being eligible for $10, 800 in education benefits. In addition, the New GI Bill was established as an educational assistance program and not as a savings plan from which to withdraw funds for impulse purchases that are not uncommon to youth. Senator Cranston also expressed regret—on behalf of himself and Senator Murkowski—that the Parliamentarian didn’t accord the Veterans’ Affairs Committee sequential referral on section 522 of S. 1160, as the Parliamentarian accorded the Armed Services Committee sequential referral of H.R. 752. Noted Mr. Cranston at 7517: “I am advised by the Parliamentarian that the fact that this provision is included in a measure that has been reported from the [Armed Services] Committee as an original bill, rather than as a bill previously introduced and reported, precludes us from doing so successfully. I believe that there is no doubt that section 522 invades the jurisdiction of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee and that a point of order to that effect would have been sustained by the chair were this not an original bill.” Mr. Cranston further observed that “our committee has agreed to honor the request of that [Armed Services] Committee and agree to a limited sequential referral of H.R. 752…. That same spirit of accommodation is not being exercised regarding the pending [S. 1160] measure, however.”
Alan Cranston to G.V. Montgomery, July 18, 1985. HCVA Internal Historical File on the Montgomery GI Bill. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs support for Montgomery’s efforts in opposition to the Senate-passed section 522 is evidenced. Cranston also notes his frustration in not being named an outside conferee on the FY 1988 DoD Authorizations Act with respect to section 522—proposed New GI Bill changes under the jurisdiction of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee: “Frank’s [Murkowski] and my efforts to be named conferees on the Senate side regarding these matters, as Al Simpson and I were last year, have been unsuccessful thus far.”
Such persons/organizations include but are not limited to military personnel associations, veterans’ service organizations, higher education associations, and the service branches. “Four years” is a reference to Mr. Montgomery/cosponsors commencing the bill’s initial development through informal 1980 meetings with the service branches and higher education/veterans’/military personnel associations through the January 28, 1981, introduction of H. R. 1400, the proposed Veterans’ Educational Assistance Act of 1981; and finally to the October 17, 1984, enactment of the three-year New GI Bill program in Title VII of the Fiscal Year 2005 National Defense Authorization Act (Public Law 98-525).
To view all of the visuals from this event, see University Libraries, Mississippi State University at http://library.msstate.edu. Select the Congressional and Political Research Center tab; digital collections; Stennis-Montgomery collection; and GI Bill photos.
The Coast Guard then was organizationally part of the U.S. Department of Transportation. The Coast Guard is now part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.