Navy News, news from Iraq - Navy Times

Webb plugs need for GI Bill to cover college

NORFOLK, Va. — Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., met with a small group of veterans and service members at Norfolk City Hall today, where he heard a wide array of problems with benefits and health care experienced by former members of the military.

Webb said the national system for supporting veterans faces a twofold strain as demographics shift away from a once-massive population of World War II veterans to Vietnam-era veterans now reaching retirement age and service members return from Iraq and Afghanistan today.

“The system is being stressed from two sides right now,” he said. “What it takes is aggressive, smart leadership to get the institutions turned around and focused on these things. We’re doing our best.”

Webb has experience with the issues. A Naval Academy graduate who went to Vietnam as a Marine infantry officer, he returned to the U.S., earned a law degree and then served as counsel for the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

He’s now a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, where he has introduced a bill for expanded education and training programs for veterans of the post-Sept. 11 era.

During his town hall meeting in Norfolk, he said today’s war veterans should get the same full access to a government-funded college education that servicemen got through the GI Bill after coming home from World War II.

He said a modern veteran can hardly afford a community college education under the current Montgomery GI Bill, a peacetime measure that requires contributions from the service member.

“Our people who have been serving since 9-11 have been carrying a tremendous load for this entire country. … They’ve been expending an enormous amount of energy and losing a lot of good days of their lives when they could be doing other things,” he said. “I think at a very minimum, they deserve the same kind of GI Bill that people who came back from World War II received. They don’t have that now.”