HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY

Happy Memorial Day. I am always a little sad as it really is not about honouring vets in general but honouring those who have paid the ultimate price. And, I surely think that as we head toward the 6th year of an unnecessary war, at least from where I am--SAD, REGRETFUL, ANGRY--let's do a little better toward our brave soldiers than pay lip service.

With all this "support the troops," I can think of a tangible way to do it. Give the soldiers an honest to goodness workable GI bill. What they have now is inadequate to say the least. The Montgomery GI bill was started at a time when the Volunteer Army was touted as the final say so for providing a ready active force. And, it was at a relative time of peace and so the Congress or President didn't feel any great shakes to do better than the Montgomery Bill which just won't hack it. The soldier has to end up providing $1200 dollars himself for something like 36 weeks of schooling--not nearly enough to sustain the fledgling student. The present GI bill was like making a down payment without knowing where the rest was coming from. It was a benefit but a poor one. Now, there's a different Army, there's a world wide war on terror which is not going to end and it is time to sweeten the pot. Senator Jim Webb in trying to get his new GI bill passed said something like, "we must honour these few who are making the sacrifices by insuring that they have an adequate GI bill when they get out."

What we hope this GI bill will be is close to the WW ll one. In 1944, FDR gave GIs an adequate one and it paved the way for a bright future for the 8.2 million returning vets who took advantage of it. And, then of course, there's John McCain and the Senator from South Carolina, Lindsay Graham, who don't want an adequate GI bill because that means that soldiers might get out of the military. What sort of thinking is this? Well, it is the sort of thinking that got us into Iraq in the first place.