On this Memorial Day as we remember our fallen Veterans, as a country we need to show true appreciation to our servicemembers. I would also like to remind you of the president's promise to veto Webb's New GI Bill.
Obviously, the Pentagon is afraid that GI Bill is to generous and would make the civilian sector to appealing to remain in the service longer than 1 term. This may be true. However, what our leadership in the White House and Pentagon is trying to do is create/maintain an environment in the military where the less fortunate or forced to join/remain in the military due to lack of opportunity. Texas State Representative Rick Noriega, OEF veteran stated the following regarding Senator Cornyn.
Sen. Cornyn argues that financing higher education for veterans would encourage soldiers to leave the military to attend college. The notion that we should limit benefits to force our troops to stay in the military is morally repugnant.
In these days of the "war on terror" the sacrifice of the military is much greater in that servicemembers are required to serve mulitple long tours 12-15 months and often extended for longer periods. During a four year enlistment, soldiers/marines can be expected to serve 2 combat tours. They have earned the right to this benefit in addition to the medical care for injuries, mental health care for PTSD veterans. This is part of taking care of them as we promised. The biggest threat to recruitment and retention is to send a message to the country that we are going to use you up and not take care of you when you get back. We will only approve legislation to keep you around when it benefits us.
This is unacceptable. We should seriously consider replacing any democrat or republican who does not support oveturning the president's veto of this legislation.