President Obama saluted the extension of GI Bill education benefits to post-9/11 veterans today, saying they sacrificed abroad while others back home sought to make money or play politics.
"While so many were reaching for the quick buck, they were heading out on patrol," Obama said. "While our discourse often produced more heat than light, especially here in Washington, they have put their very lives on the line for America. They have borne the responsibility of war."
During a ceremony at George Mason University, Obama said helping veterans with college tuition and housing is more than a "moral obligation."
"We do it because these men and women must now be prepared to lead our nation in the peaceful pursuit of economic leadership in the 21st century," said Obama, who was joined at the ceremony by Vice President Biden.
The legislation is expected to cost up to $70 billion over the next decade.
President Bush actually signed the new GI Bill last year, but it did not take effect until last Friday. It basically gives college financial assistance to veterans of the war on terrorism, post 9/11, including those who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and their families. The bill also covers reservists and National Guard members.
"Over the last eight years, they have endured tour after tour of duty in dangerous and distant places," Obama said. "They've experienced grueling combat, from the streets of Fallujah to the harsh terrain of Helmand province. They've adapted to complex insurgencies, protected local populations and trained foreign security forces."
Obama said, "You pick the school, we'll help pick up the bill."
Presidents are always looking to link themselves to historic pieces of legislation, and few fit that definition better than the GI Bill.
First signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, the GI Bill helped provide college educations for up to 8 million veterans from World War II, creating a social and cultural revolution in the Baby Boom years that followed.
GI Bill recipients would come to include three U.S. presidents, three Supreme Court justices, 14 Nobel Prize winners and two dozen Pulitzer Prize winners, Obama said. "But more importantly, it produced hundreds of thousands of scientists and engineers, doctors and nurses, the backbone of the largest middle class in history."
He added that the GI Bill "paid for itself many times over through the increased revenue that came from a generation of men and women who received the skills and education that they needed to create their own wealth."
In 1984, Congress extended GI Bill benefits to Americans who volunteered for military service in peacetime.
Taken from USAToday.
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