Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 22, 1994                   TAG: 9407200022
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GI BILL OF RIGHTS CHANGED LIVES OF MILLIONS OF VETS

One thing made it possible: the GI Bill.

``It covered everything,'' Barrett remembered. ``They paid your tuition, and then they gave you $65 a month to live on. I took $20 of that and gave it to my mother - $5 a week for board - and I took care of myself with the other $45.''

Instead of working in a factory, the life he had expected, he went on from Villanova University to become a reporter for the old Evening Bulletin. He used the GI Bill a second time for a low-interest loan on a house in the leafy suburb of Havertown, Pa.

The GI Bill of Rights, signed into law 50 years ago today, changed millions of lives in similar ways.

Officially called the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, the bill was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt two weeks after D-Day, as American soldiers were dying by the thousands in France.

Today, it is regarded as one of the most far-reaching acts of Congress in this century, rivaled only by the creation of Social Security. The GI Bill enabled 8 million World War II veterans to go to college or training school and 4 million to become homeowners - helping to elevate much of a generation from the working class to the middle class, a status that most have passed on to their children and grandchildren.

The result was a social revolution in postwar America - the rise of an educated work force, the opening of colleges and universities to the masses, the development of the suburbs. All those things might have happened without the GI Bill, but not as fast and not as much.

Michael Bennett, author of a forthcoming book on the GI Bill, said, ``It was the revolution that people lived through and didn't realize they were in the middle of.''

America had a long, sorry record of letting veterans down. After each of the nation's wars had come economic recession, as factories that had made the guns and ships cut back. Washington didn't seem to care. Some aid was given to the wounded and disabled, but assistance was often slow and inadequate.

``The veterans who returned from World War I were dumped on the street,'' said Bennett. ``Many of them peddled apples; many of them rode the rails.''

The American Legion, a vast organization of World War I veterans, was determined that the soldiers of World War II would get a better break.

The public was for the bill, making that clear in a blizzard of telegrams. Both the House and Senate passed versions early in 1944, and the legislation went before a joint House-Senate committee to work out differences.

Fifty years after its passage, the bill remains in place. Reservists and peacetime veterans may now participate.

The housing loan program, run by the Veterans Administration, is much the same, but educational benefits have ``eroded and eroded,'' said American Legion spokesman Phil Budahn.

The latest GI Bill, adopted in 1984, pays up to $14,400 for tuition and fees. But four years of college costs $16,000 on average. At private colleges, the average is $44,000.

Servicemen and women also now must pay $100 a month their first year in the military if they ever want benefits.

``We don't really do for them what we did for the World War II veteran,'' American Legion spokesman Phil Budahn said. ``What we did for the World War II generation lingered for decades. The investment that we made is still paying.''