Plessner Chronicle Blog

Of course it helped that I went through college in the same dorm with some of them — veterans of the Korean War, mostly — and a rowdy and randy bunch of characters they were! I was just a kid out of high school and they were men of the world who told great stories and raised a little good-natured Hell!

But as I grew older and formed the political outlook I have today, I realized how profoundly wise the G. I. Bill really was.

Not only did it give deserving ordinary Americans a chance to climb up the ladder to economic success and a better life. It also gave our country a burst of knowledge, intellect, creativity and initiative that led to things like computers, Silicon Valley, the Space Age, today’s quality of life, great new literature and art and just about everything good(and some of it questionable), that the United States has given to the world over the last 50 years!

And it did all that by helping every kind of American, male or female, black, white or brown, urban or rural, rich or poor.

Some of that money was wasted and there was fraud in some education that wasn’t delivered, but overall I still believe that the G. I. Bill was the best social legislation in history!

And that’s probably why George W. Bush(and John McCain) are opposed to it.

They say they are concerned that making a free college education so attractive will cause young people in our military to not re-enlist and that’s probably right.

But that’s like admitting it will discourage young people in the military from aspiring to a better life and that’s wrong!

(If you think I’m being racist or classist just look at the next list of Americans lost in Iraq and count how many come from small towns or count how many Senators or Congressional Representatives have children in the military.)

We must begin to understand one truth about our current national policy and how it impacts upon other issues.

The war on Iraq, and many other military activities are acts of imperialism and imperialistic states need professional rather than citizen militaries. A professional military will, of necessity, require large numbers of younger, less educated, lower class recruits.

Giving those recruits the chance to secure advanced education and move back to civilian life will make it much more difficult to maintain a professional military.

And that’s why you shouldn’t be surprised by the president’s position. I won’t be surprised by conservatives who will agree with him.