McCain and the New GI Bill

As I've said before, the least we can do for our returning vets is to give them the opportunity to go to college and realize dreams that they may have thought unreachable. Most of the Senate and House agree with me. Unfortunately, the presumptive Republican nominee, a Vietnam vet and POW, doesn't agree. He's more concerned that our current military doesn't start leaving the service in order to go to college. As Cynthia Tucker, of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, points out,

Now, Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), joined by his colleagues John Warner (R-Va.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), wants to give veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan a similar package of benefits, since those young men and women, like the vets of the Greatest Generation, have made enormous sacrifices for their country. But their proposal has met stiff opposition from the White House and from Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

McCain claims the proposal is too expensive; he has offered a scaled-down version of the plan. Webb's new GI Bill, which covers the entire cost for a veteran attending a public college, would require about $5 billion a year. The continued U.S. troop presence in Iraq costs much, much more — about $144 billion a year. Surely the nation can afford to give a fraction of that to the troops.

Perhaps the real reason for McCain's refusal to support more generous college benefits lies in a letter Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote to Congress a few weeks ago: The Pentagon fears the plan would lure soldiers away from re-enlistment and back into civilian life. With the Republican establishment lined up behind an open-ended commitment to Iraq — and with some chicken hawks screaming for military action against Iran — they need cannon fodder. They don't want enlisted men and women to have the alternative of a college education paid for by a grateful nation.

Revelations like that always give me a shudder — a momentary feeling of disorientation. Is this still America? Aren't we the nation that claims we absolutely support the troops, that we will never dishonor their service again, that we all should be wearing flag pins to show our pride and patriotism?