Brian Kilmeade Needs To Go Back To School

Or maybe take a U.S. history course or two or three. Here is Kilmeade’s explanation for why returning World War II veterans deserved a G.I. bill that offered them a college education, and today’s veterans do not (via Crooks and Liars):

After all this is different. People point to, “Well, look what they did after World War II.” Well, after World War II, people were conscripted. They said “You’re joining.” They said for doing that and winning the war, here’s a college education. Now people are saying “I want to be a military person. I am signing on in a volunteer force.”

That sounded way too glib and simplistic to me, so I googled the original G.I. Bill (officially known as the Servicement’s Readjustment Act of 1944). Guess what? It was not passed because Congress wanted to reward soldiers for being drafted and then winning the war. There were several reasons for the G.I. Bill, among them:

• Guilt over the shoddy way veterans had been treated in the previous war (World War I). There was a desire to make up for that with World War II veterans.
• Concern that without a massive economic stimulus program, the country would fall back into the Great Depression that the war helped to end.

It’s also worth pointing out that the post-WWII G.I. Bill was by no means universally supported. In fact, it was downright controversial — not least of all the college education provision:

It has been heralded as one of the most significant pieces of legislation ever produced by the federal government—one that impacted the United States socially, economically and politically. But it almost never came to pass.

The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944—commonly known as the GI Bill of Rights—nearly stalled in Congress as members of the House and Senate debated provisions of the controversial bill.

Some shunned the idea of paying unemployed veterans $20 a week because they thought it diminished their incentive to look for work. Others questioned the concept of sending battle-hardened veterans to colleges and universities, a privilege then reserved for the rich.

Despite their differences, all agreed something must be done to help veterans assimilate into civilian life.

Obviously, it’s too much to expect that a so-called news professional would inform himself about the actual events surrounding an historic piece of legislation, rather than pretending that his own ignorance and ideological biases are the same as actual truth.

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