Four american soldiers, three with heavy bandaging over their faces, sitting and waiting" />Four american soldiers, three with heavy bandaging over their faces, sitting and waiting" />
Awaiting evacuation: American troops from the 3rd Battalion, 16th Infantry injured while storming Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.
The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY
In the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, the men of the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions dropped from the sky along the coast of Normandy. The dangerous night jump behind enemy lines represented the first phase of Operation OVERLORD, General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s ambitious and risky plan for the Allies to take France back from Nazi Germany. The 15,600 American paratroopers had one assignment: secure the beachhead between Sainte-Mère-Église and Carentan in advance of the 57,400 American troops scheduled to storm France’s beaches in a matter of hours. Once on the ground, the paratroopers used toy “crickets” to signal each other in the darkness and reassemble into units. The Americans weren’t alone. British and Canadian paratroopers were also on hand, preparing the way for 83,000 of their compatriots.
As the paratroopers moved through the night, billy-goating rocky formations and cutting through hedgerows in search of German defensive positions, the initial Allied invasion force made its way across the English Channel. Slicing through choppy waters, the assault convoys approached the fifty-mile stretch of coast between Cherbourg and Le Havre. The five landing spots on the beach had been given fanciful names during the planning process. The Americans were responsible for “Utah” and “Omaha,” the stretch closest to Cherbourg, while Britain tackled “Gold” and “Sword,” and Canada wrestled “Juno.”
Just after 5:30 a.m., the Germans, realizing that something was afoot, started firing their coastal batteries. Fifteen minutes later, as scheduled, the Allied fleet unleashed a wall of fire, bombarding German positions. As shells flew overhead, generating a deafening cloud of sound, American troops emerged from their transport carriers, forcing stiff legs down the ramps, into the water, and right into the Wehrmacht’s line of fire. The lucky ones found shelter under cliffs or behind the seawalls. The not-so-lucky ones bled into the sand and sea.
As OVERLORD—or D-Day as it is more commonly known—got underway on that overcast Tuesday morning, another offensive was drawing to a close in Washington, D.C. For the previous six months, a battle had been waged in Congress and in the press over what kind of compensation the men and women who served in World War II should receive. At issue was the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, better known as the G.I. Bill of Rights.
By the time of the D-Day invasion, more than 11.6 million men and women were in uniform. They had put their lives, jobs, and families on hold to serve their country at home and in Europe, North Africa, and the Pacific. Some would not return, but the majority would survive their service and look to reclaim their lives as civilians. What did the nation owe its veterans?
President Franklin D. Roosevelt broached the subject of how veterans would be compensated during one of his fireside chats on July 28, 1943. After Roosevelt spoke to the American people about the progress being made in Europe—where “the criminal, corrupt Fascist regime in Italy is going to pieces”—he told listeners that he and his advisers had been “laying plans for the return to civilian life of our gallant men and women in the armed services.” He made a distinction between the sacrifices made by those on the home front and those in uniform, arguing that veterans would be “entitled to definite action to help take care of their special problems.”
“They must not be demobilized into an environment of inflation and unemployment, to a place on a bread line, or on a corner selling apples,” said the president. “We must, this time, have plans ready—instead of waiting to do a hasty, inefficient, and ill-considered job at the last moment.” By invoking the image of the breadline or selling apples on a corner to escape the shame of panhandling, Roosevelt reminded listeners of two unflattering images of World War I veterans. It was also a sly reference to the debacle known as the “Bonus Army.”
When World War I broke out, politicians scaled back veterans’ benefits to avoid massive obligations like those imposed by Civil War pensions. Under the War Risk Insurance Act of 1917, veterans with disabilities and dependents of the dead would be provided with “compensation.” Unlike the Civil War pensions, veterans would not receive assistance to cope with the infirmities of old age or injuries sustained off the battlefield. The word “pension” was nowhere to be found, and no provisions were made for men who served and returned unscathed. In the years following the war, a groundswell developed calling for World War I veterans to receive “universal adjusted service compensation.” Veterans argued that they had lost income—both from giving up jobs and from the low wages paid soldiers—while serving their country and should be compensated. Critics of the plan called it a “bonus,” a name that stuck.
In 1924, Congress, drunk on the era of prosperity and budget surpluses, authorized the bonuses. A veteran who served more than sixty days could receive $1 for each day on duty stateside and $1.25 for each day on duty overseas. The maximum amount was capped at $500 for those who served stateside and $625 for those who served overseas. But there was a catch: The bonus came in the form a certificate payable in 1945 or upon the recipient’s death. The program was estimated to cost the government approximately $4 billion, but the payments would be deferred.
When the Great Depression hit, many veterans found themselves without jobs and standing on breadlines. Why couldn’t the government pay their bonus now when these veterans needed it? The American Legion, an organization formed by World War I veterans, pleaded their case in the halls of Congress and in the press. In 1931, Congress passed a bill, against President Herbert Hoover’s objections, allowing veterans to take out loans against their bonuses. For many, this wasn’t enough and the drumbeat for the bonuses to be paid in cash continued. In the spring and early summer of 1932, twenty thousand veterans from across the country converged on Washington, demanding their bonuses then, not later. Calling themselves the “Bonus Expeditionary Force” or “Bonus Army,” they set up camp on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol and built temporary shacks along the Anacostia River.
When another bill authorizing immediate payment of bonuses failed to pass Congress in July, many veterans decided to return home. Several thousand, however, vowed to remain in Washington until they received their bonuses. After weeks of protests and simmering violence, the Metropolitan Police attempted to oust the veterans from the National Mall, sparking a riot that left two dead. When city officials appealed to the White House for help, Hoover authorized the U.S. Army to step in.
Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur, decked out in his full-dress uniform, personally commanded a force of sabre-wielding cavalrymen and bayonet-bearing infantrymen against the veterans. Six midget tanks were also deployed. Instead of herding the marchers back into their campsite along the Anacostia River, as instructed, MacArthur exceeded his orders. He authorized the use of tear gas against the veterans and burned their shacks to the ground. Eisenhower, who was then serving as one of MacArthur’s aides, was enraged at his superior’s actions. “I told that dumb son-of-a-bitch not to go down there,” he would later claim.
Already perceived as heartless toward the suffering of the Great Depression, the “Battle of Anacostia Flats” helped seal Hoover’s fate in the 1932 election. Much to their dismay, veterans quickly learned that the White House’s new occupant, Roosevelt, didn’t favor awarding bonuses either. When they staged a second demonstration in May 1933, the president responded not with force, but with his wife, sending First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to meet with the marchers. The veterans were also offered lodging at a campsite in Virginia and three meals a day. When the New Deal created the Civilian Conservation Corps, 25,000 spots were allocated for unemployed veterans, with the marchers in Washington receiving priority. In 1936, World War I veterans finally received their bonuses—even though Roosevelt vetoed the bill.
Cognizant of the messy legacy of previous benefit programs, Roosevelt decided to try a new approach. In a fireside chat, he proposed that service members be given mustering-out pay, unemployment insurance, education assistance, and expanded access to hospital care. Disabled veterans would receive pensions as before. “[T]he members of the armed forces have been compelled to make greater economic sacrifice and every other kind of sacrifice than the rest of us, and they are entitled to definite action to help take care of their special problems,” said the president.
Roosevelt’s proposal offered a radical new way to think about veterans’ benefits. While wanting to acknowledge veterans’ service, the president also sought to reintegrate millions of troops into the economy. Mustering-out pay and unemployment insurance would sustain veterans as they looked for work, while education and training offered the means to a better life. Anyone who served honorably would receive assistance, not just the disabled or families of the deceased. To Roosevelt’s mind, veterans would succeed when they were part of the larger whole—the economy and the nation—and not treated as an isolated group. It was the same kind of thinking that had shaped the New Deal.
Three months later, on October 27, 1943, Roosevelt turned his idea into a concrete proposal, formally asking Congress to enact legislation that would finance one year of educational or vocational training for all who served in World War II. Those deemed to have academic potential would be eligible for support for four years. “For many, what they desire most in the way of employment will require special training and further education,” wrote Roosevelt. “As a part of a general program for the benefit of the members of our armed services, I believe that the Nation is morally obligated to provide this training and education and the necessary financial assistance by which they can be secured.”
Roosevelt envisioned long-term benefits for the country. “The money invested in this training and schooling program will reap rich dividends in higher productivity, more intelligent leadership, and greater human happiness. We must replenish our supply of persons qualified to discharge the heavy responsibilities of the postwar world. We have taught our youth how to wage war; we must also teach them how to live useful and happy lives in freedom, justice, and decency.”
On December 15, 1943, Harry Colmery sat down at the desk in his Mayflower Hotel suite, flipped some “Alfred Landon for President” stationery over to the blank side, and began writing the outline of a bill to provide assistance to veterans. The stationery was a memento from the 1936 Republican Convention, where Colmery served as a delegate. Four years later, he was the national chairman of the Willkie War Veterans National Committee. Aside from party politics, Colmery’s great love was the American Legion. A flight instructor and pursuit pilot during World War I, Colmery helped organize one of the first Legion chapters in Utah, before serving as the Legion’s national commander.
Colmery had been recruited by the Legion to serve on a special committee fighting for veterans’ benefits. The committee was chaired by John Stelle, the former governor of Illinois and a Roosevelt supporter, making it a bipartisan affair. Over the next three weeks, Colmery, Stelle, and other committee members met with experts, organizations, and lobbyists specializing in education, banking, and employment. They used these conversations to craft a bill that included everything on Roosevelt’s list—and more. They also wanted loans for homes, farms, and small businesses, an employment service for veterans, prompt settlement of disability claims, and the concentration of all veterans’ affairs into a properly staffed Veterans Administration. Mustering-out pay was dropped after Congress passed it in a separate bill.
The bill was officially titled the “Serviceman’s Readjustment Act,” but Jack Cejnar, the Legion’s acting director of public relations knew they needed a snappier name to sell it and came up with the Bill of Rights concept. On January 8, 1944, the American Legion unveiled its proposal for a “Bill of Rights for G.I. Joe and Jane”—which was quickly shortened to the G.I. Bill of Rights. “The name was something close to genius. It was short, punchy, easily grasped. It told the whole story—and it became a fighting slogan from coast to coast,” writes R. B. Pitkin in American Legion Magazine. The name put senators and representatives in the position of having to vote for America’s brave G.I.s or against them.
