In 1940, during the Battle of Britain, Prime Minister Winston Churchill celebrated the daring crews of the Royal Air Force with stirring words: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." Today, something similar could be said about the men and women wearing the uniform of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. Never have so few U.S. soldiers been asked to sacrifice so much while so little was asked of the rest of us.
A good way to begin to set things right is for Congress to approve an update of the G.I. Bill of Rights. The original G.I. Bill was a way of saying "thank you" to the generation that fought and won World War II. Enacted in 1944, it extended help for education, unemployment and the purchase of a house to returning veterans. Historians hailed it as a landmark piece of legislation. Over time, 8 million WWII vets signed up for the benefits and helped to make postwar America a better place to live. We need its modern equivalent today. ...
Now Democrats have tacked it onto President Bush's emergency spending measure for Iraq and Afghanistan. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the proposal would cost $51.8 billion over 10 years. That's expensive, but meeting the needs of veterans should be seen as a cost of the war.
It seems the least we can do for those who went to fight while others obeyed the president and went shopping, but the administration and some in Congress have balked because of the cost. Good thing they weren't around in 1944. The original G.I. Bill was expensive, too, but it was worth it. ...
A better G.I. Bill is a reward for sacrifice, not a handout. It's time for Congress to act.
-- Miami Herald
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