Search Results

This chapter examines how Vietnam veterans' benefits became the subject of attacks from the conservative Right. World War II veterans came home to an expanding economy that offered numerous opportunities. In contrast, many Vietnam War veterans returned at a time when the economy suffered its most significant downturn in decades. The nation's economic woes were compounded by a host of factors, including the enormous costs of the Vietnam War, the federal programs created under the Great Society, and the oil crisis during Richard Nixon's second term. This chapter considers how fiscal conservatism under the Nixon administration affected the plight of Vietnam veterans. It discusses Nixon's attempts to prevent Congress from passing a more generous G.I. Bill, along with the passage of the Veterans' Readjustment Act of 1972 and its failure to address the main problems created by the previous law with respect to benefits for Vietnam veterans.

This chapter explores the political debates surrounding the passage of the 1966 Cold War G.I. Bill, the first G.I. bill of the Vietnam era. Unlike the earlier World War II and Korean Conflict wartime G.I. bills, the 1966 bill covered all noncombat Cold War veterans and, therefore, proved to be far less generous. Politicians from Great Society liberals to fiscal conservatives deemed that these later veterans had not earned the right to more substantial benefits because they had not faced fire directly. The bill made no distinction between veterans serving in peacetime conditions and Vietnam combat veterans. Consequently, Vietnam veterans were left with a G.I. bill significantly less generous than the one awarded to their predecessors. This chapter reveals how the 1966 bill fell prey to the nuances of both the liberal and conservative economic philosophies of the mid-twentieth century and left a legacy of bitterness among Vietnam veterans.

This chapter traces the history of federal debates over war veterans' benefits from the early Republic to the Vietnam era. After discussing the origins of offering compensation for the hazards of military service, the chapter considers the evolution of the G.I. Bills and the controversies surrounding them. It shows that, for ideological and economic reasons, the provision of veterans' benefits has been a contested issue in American politics since the Civil War. It also examines arguments by politicians from Thomas Jefferson through Franklin D. Roosevelt that military service should be a natural obligation of citizenship rather than a basis for ongoing federal benefits, along with claims that the cost of benefits placed an unnecessary financial burden on the government. Finally, it explains how the enactment of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 paved the way for a model that provides benefits to future generations of veterans.

This chapter examines some of the consequences of the political wrangling in Washington on the Vietnam veterans' educational opportunities. Soon after the passage of the Veterans' Readjustment Benefits Act, both Congress and President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration examined the option of increasing the education benefits for Vietnam veterans. In September 1966, Johnson created a special task force by executive order to examine veterans' benefits. He also proposed the Vietnam Conflict Servicemen and Veterans' Act of 1967 and reversed his earlier plans to downsize the Veterans Administration. This chapter discusses the difficulties encountered by many of the first veterans of the Vietnam War as they returned home to use their education benefits.

This chapter examines the political debates that accompanied the passage of the first of the Vietnam-era G.I. Bills, the Veterans' Readjustment Benefits Act of 1966. It considers the role of Senator Ralph W. Yarborough, a Texas Democrat, in pushing for a new G.I. Bill that would compensate all citizens called upon for military service and the opposition he faced from fellow Texan Democrat Olin Teague in the House. In particular, it explains how the Vietnam War helped Yarborough's cause, resulting in the Veterans' Readjustment Benefits Act that gave the same benefits to all Cold War veterans. It also discusses the arguments of President Lyndon B. Johnson regarding federal spending and his eventual signing of the bill into law. Finally, it reflects on the significance of the 1966 G.I. Bill with respect to veterans' benefits and to democratic citizenship more generally.

This chapter investigates the cases of victory and defeat and explains what politically influential veterans were able to produce to secure benefits and rights. It focuses on China after its long period of war and civil war that ended in 1949, the United Kingdom after both world wars, the United States after World War I, and the USSR after World War II. It analyses the cases wherein veterans had little or limited success in securing meaningful social and political status. The chapter identifies factors that determine the veterans' status, where it is victory or defeat, or authoritarian versus democratic systems of government. It discusses the political process and the attempts to convert claims into entitlements in order to explain the negative outcomes for the veterans of victorious armies.

This chapter examines veterans' initial reaction to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. The 1933 Economy Act, the second piece of legislation passed in the New Deal's “Hundred Days,” had reduced veteran benefits by more than $400 million. In response to the Economy Act, many veterans immediately broke ranks with the Roosevelt administration and questioned the authenticity of the New Deal's claims to helping the forgotten man. Members of both the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and the American Legion expressed outrage at this piece of legislation and its implementation by the administration. In their forceful response to the Economy Act, veterans, in particular those in the VFW, joined with other early critics of the New Deal who chastised FDR's unwillingness to reconfigure the nation's political economy.

This chapter examines the fight in Congress over the creation of the G.I. Bill of Rights, placing the episode in the larger context of postwar reconversion. The chapter argues that the G.I. Bill, long celebrated as an important contribution to social welfare policy in the United States, represented a much more conservative approach than implementing a cradle-to-grave social security system that provided health care for all. Liberals in Congress fought for the latter at the same time the G.I. Bill was being considered. That they lost was no surprise but was in keeping with the important wartime shifts away from the New Deal welfare state and toward a less liberal warfare state.

The unresolved territorial conflicts and outbreaks of violence that have characterized the history of Israel make it distinctive among welfare states in affluent democracies. The war which accompanied the founding of the state in 1948 was quickly followed by the creation of a dedicated system of veterans’ benefits. Both the demand and supply of military-related benefits has been repeatedly refuelled by ongoing conflict and war preparation. These benefits have grown in both generosity and coverage, while at the same time having a crowding-out effect on parallel civilian programmes. This chapter documents the resulting dualistic character of social rights in Israel, and explains the institutional, political, and cultural dynamics that have driven the evolution of military-related benefits.

This chapter focuses on what motivates intimate deceivers, presenting a taxonomy of common motivations. The book starts by examining deceivers because legal and popular scrutiny of intimate deception too often begins with the people who have been deceived, faulting them for having been fooled. Although there can be substantial variations between individual cases, the motivations behind intimate deception tend to reflect recurring themes. Psychological factors can make some people more likely to deceive their intimates. In addition, there can be tremendous concrete and practical incentives to deceive intimates or to deceive people into intimacy—and the law itself has created or exacerbated some of those incentives. Courts denying remedies sometimes minimize or discount the role that deception played in an intimate relationship. But exploring why people deceive their intimates reveals that deceit can be crucially significant to relationships and can produce enormous benefits for deceivers.

The Second World War and its aftermath marked a high point in Canadian-American relations. Founded on a common poetical objective—the defeat of the Axis powers—the two countries adopted strikingly similar and often identical means to achieve it. Mobilization of money, industry, and manpower produced a sense of common sacrifice for a common purpose, compressing incomes by raising taxes. Canada was that rare ally that did not need American loans and paid its way through war production. The Canadian military was not insignificant either. Canada asked relatively little of the senior allied leaders, Roosevelt and Churchill, which resulted in enhanced Canadian standing. The wartime domestic regime—high taxes, compressed incomes and generous veterans’ benefits continued in many respects into the post-war period. Canada more definitely resembled the United States in everything from the treatment of veterans through ubiquitous trade union power through anti-communism.