Failing Our Veterans: The G. I. Bill and the Vietnam Generation

Returning Vietnam veterans had every reason to expect that the government would take care of their readjustment needs in the same way it had done for veterans of both World War II and Korea. But the Vietnam generation soon discovered that their G.I. Bills fell well short of what many of them believed they had earned. Mark Boulton's groundbreaking study provides the first analysis of the legislative debates surrounding the education benefits offered under the Vietnam-era G.I. Bills. Specifically, the book explores why legislators from both ends of the political spectrum failed to provide Vietnam veterans the same generous compensation offered to veterans of previous wars. Failing Our Veterans should be essential reading to scholars of the Vietnam War, political history, or of social policy. Contemporary lawmakers should heed its historical lessons on how we ought to treat our returning veterans. Indeed, veterans wishing to fully understand their own homecoming experience will find great interest in the book's conclusions. The original 1944 G.I. Bill holds a special place in the American imagination. In popular mythology, it stands as the capstone of the Greatest Generation narrative of World War II, a fitting reward for the nation's heroes. Given the almost universal acclaim afforded the bill, future generations of warriors might well have expected to receive similar remuneration for their sacrifice. But when soldiers of the Vietnam conflict shed their fatigues and returned home to civilian life, they found that their G.I. Bills fell well short of what many of them believed they had earned. In this first legisl In this legislative history of the G.I. Bill during the Vietnam era, Mark Boulton takes the story of veterans' politics beyond the 1944 G.I. Bill as he seeks to uncover the reasons why Vietnam veterans were less well compensated than their predecessors. In crafting their legislation, both conservative and liberal politicians of the Vietnam era wrestled with fundamental questions about the obligations of American citizenship. What does it mean to serve one's country? What does society owe those civilians it puts in uniform?