Social Bookmarking
WARRIOR FOR THE G.I. BILL -- "He was driven for work.
He rarely slept. His passion was for the
veterans."
Harry W. Colmery in WWI Army Air Corps
uniform.
For more about the G.I. Bill, use the VA Watchdog
search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/ses
search.php?q=g.i.+bill&op=ph
Story here...
http://www.kansascity
.com/273/story/336097.html
Story below:
Learn
More about how to get a VA Loan today -- Click Here
-------------------------
COMMENTARY
Warrior for the G.I. Bill
By BARBARA SHELLY
The Kansas City Star
For most of his adult life, he juggled a busy law practice in Topeka and a
national role as an advocate for veterans. He never retired from either;
Colmery was still practicing law when he died at an American Legion
convention in 1979 at age 89.
His admirers — and they are many — are finding it necessary to follow his
example. For 10 years, an effort has been under way to make Colmery a
posthumous recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s
highest civilian honor.
Article continues below:
MONEY TALKS NEWS
VIDEOS -- MONEY-SAVING TIPS FOR YOU
(use left/right arrows in screen to view more videos)
|
The effort has united politicians of both
parties. The House of Representatives passed a resolution in 2004 urging
that Colmery be honored for the role he played in drafting and lobbying
for the G.I. Bill of Rights.
Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have not conferred the honor,
however. And it may not be politically palatable for Bush to do so while
his administration is opposing an increase in the benefits begun under the
original G.I. Bill.
Colmery’s family, friends and supporters say they will persevere. Colmery
would have expected nothing less.
“He was driven for work,” his daughter, Mary Colmery Olander, said shortly
before her death early this month. “He rarely slept. His passion was for
the veterans.”
Colmery served in the Army Air Corps during World War I. He was deeply
troubled by the sight of veterans on street corners and unemployment lines
at the war’s end, and resolved not to let the same thing happen to World
War II veterans.
By then, Colmery was active in the leadership of the American Legion,
which was lobbying Congress for veterans benefits. Colmery took his ideas
and proposals from other Legion members and wrote them in longhand on
stationery provided by the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. Those
scribblings became the foundation for the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of
1944, better known as the G.I. Bill.
Passage didn’t come easily. Congressmen worried that providing veterans
with benefits such as tuition aid, homeownership loans and unemployment
stipends would be too costly and diminish initiative. As it turned out,
the G.I. Bill opened the door to a thriving American middle class.
Colmery’s papers, including his congressional testimony and other
speeches, have been donated to the Kansas State Historical Society in
Topeka. His thoughts on veterans are as pertinent today as they were at
the end of World War II.
“We take them out of our competitive system,” Colmery said in one speech,
“… and having used, wasted and sacrificed him, we toss him back into
life’s rough and tumble competition, to start from scratch in a race
against contestants who have already run quite a number of laps. We have
taught him the value of war and alienated him from the values of peace.
“And when he returns, we have a veteran’s problem. But too many of us have
been satisfied to consider it his — rather than our problem.”
Photos and information about Harry W. Colmery can be found at the Web site
of the Kansas State Historical Society,
www.kshs.org.
-------------------------
Larry Scott --
Don't forget to read all of today's VA
News Flashes (click here)
Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage
email Larry
(go
back to VA Watchdog dot Org Home Page) |
