Visual Rhetoric 2

Image of Vietnam Reflections by Lee Teter retrieved on November 19, 2010 from:  http://www.qsl.net/n/n6tx//veteran/

This painting is of a man visiting the Vietnam wall.  He appears to be a Vietnam vet visiting the wall to see the names of some friends he lost during the war.  It is obviously many years after the war and his life has moved on.  He appears to be no longer a soldier, but a businessman of some kind.  As he touches his hand to the wall, the men he is visiting appear as reflections.  He seems to be lost in thought or weeping.  I have always thought the hand touching his and the man attached to it is him, when he was a soldier.  Perhaps that part of him that was young and innocent; lost during the horrors of war.

Pathos is evident in the painting.  Pathos is something which appeals to our emotions.  The emotion of grief, of having lost friends or part of oneself is evident.  The man is trying to reconnect with his past and what he left behind there.  This is shown by his physically touching the wall.  His head is hung low, indicating his grief and sadness.  One could also see that his business attire and that he survived the war as representative of survivor’s guilt.  He continued on in life, while the men left in Vietnam cannot continue their lives and become successful.  They are gone, and he goes on without them.

Mythos is also in the painting.  Mythos is something that refers to familial feelings, patriotism or shared social mores.  The flag at the bottom of the wall, and the wall itself, are symbols of patriotism.  I would say that familial feelings are represented in the reflections of the lost soldiers.  Groups of soldiers are often referred to as “bands of brothers.”  The man in the painting has lost his brothers, and we can all relate to the loss of family members.

Visual Rhetoric 1

Cartoon retrieved from http://www.bluestemprairie.com on   11/29/2010

This image is showing a veteran during Veteran’s Day, possibly at a parade.  He is explaining to a couple of children the meaning of his medals.  This image is directed at other veterans, who know the difficulty of obtaining health benefits from the VA.  The purpose for the cartoon is raising awareness about veteran’s health benefits.  This is a message straight from a veteran.

Logos, ethos, mythos

The first bit of visual rhetoric this image has is logos.  Logos is anything written that conveys a statement.  The veteran is pointing out to us that he has fought in Iraq; he has fought in Afghanistan and now is forced to fight at home for healthcare from the VA.  The statement being made is that veterans stand up to do a dirty job and then they must keep fighting to have injuries they may have sustained during combat cared for.

The next piece of visual rhetoric is ethos.  Ethos is use of images to instill trust and confidence.  The two images of trust in this cartoon are the flag and the soldier himself.  The flag is often used to convey a sense of trust, whether in a product, politician or company.  The soldier is a ranking decorated member of the military.  He appears to be a sergeant, which to other junior members of the military means someone to look up to.  Even to the uninitiated civilian, he is wearing stripes.  The stripes themselves are seen by many as something to look up to.  He also has three medals, which shows that he has been somewhere and done something, also an indicator of his importance.

Finally is mythos.  Mythos is using images that invoke feelings of patriotism, familial feelings or community.  The use of Veteran’s Day and the American flag are patriotic images.  Veteran’s Day, as written on the banner, is a day associated with patriotism.  The flag is a very patriotic symbol with Americans.  It’s image can be very stirring and unifying.

A last word

Over the course of the last few weeks, I have written about the GI Bill in many of its incarnations.  From its early days as a response to genuine fears of an economic collapse at the end of the Second World War, to the disgraceful treatment of Vietnam vets and finally to the excellent forward looking program it is today.  In the end, I think I can say I enjoyed the process.  Not that it was an easy one.  I spent many days staring at a blank screen, taking little YouTube video breaks and generally trying to avoid hauling myself through what is an admittedly dry topic.  But I learned something.

          Just because a topic is dry, and this rivaled the Mojave for its aridness, doesn’t make it any less important.  The sacrifices of those that came before me needed to be told.  I was originally going to interview two members of my hometown Veterans of Foreign Wars post.  Unfortunately, Mike and Dutch have both passed on in the three long years since I have seen them. 

          Mike was a World War II vet and formerly the Post Commander at good old VFW Woodstock 5040.  Mike flew in bombers during the war, and always had great insights into the past.  It was Mike that first interested me in the history of American Veterans.  The subject he had the most to say about was the plight of Vietnam vets after their war.  You see, Mike never agreed with the policy to keep the ‘Nam boys out of the club.  He always had thought that they were given the bum’s rush when they came home and felt a little bad about it.  After all, to him, one veteran had seen enough of the horrors of war to belong.  Unfortunately, few in the governing body of the VFW agreed with him, and Vietnam vets weren’t allowed to join until the 1980’s.

          Dutch was a Vietnam vet and fiercely proud of his service.  He was a very active member of the post as well, though I think that may have been due to the cheap beer available at the cantina.  He was also very vocal about veteran’s rights and the poor treatment he received when he returned from Vietnam.  Dutch fought to open up the VFW to all veterans who fought for their country in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.  I learned a lot from Mike and Dutch, and I wish I had the chance to interview them.

          Veterans of my generation owe a great debt to those that came before.  It is imperative that we do not let them down.  These benefits are more than just a right given those that have served.  It is a duty.  A duty to learn succeed and improve the world they have left to us.  And to never forget the long road it took to get us here.

Image retrieved 12/16/2010 from world wide web http://www.firelink.monster.com/

Never again will one generation of veterans forsake another

I am, in some ways, very lucky.  The Post 9/11 GI Bill has afforded me the opportunity to continue my education.  I don’t know how many veterans will qualify for this version of the Bill, but I do know that any that have served for the past 9 plus years will.  There are those that say that this war, my war, is becoming the next Vietnam.  I disagree.  The defining characteristic of Vietnam was not that of a war lost or a victory for youth culture, but of a nation that lost its veterans.  The men and women that served in the conflict have been stereotyped, marginalized and forgotten when convenient.  This will not happen this time.

          This generation of veterans has the benefit of the lessons learned by those that ignored and misused the veterans of Vietnam.  We are being properly cared for.  Even the youth of this country have learn that, despite being veterans of an all volunteer military, we didn’t want to go to war in the first place.  We went off to war willing, and after the events of the day this Bill is named for, signed up in droves to defend our country.  But no one hates war like a soldier.  We deserved something.  We deserved to have an advantage of a proper education.  On 30 June, 2008 we got what we deserved.

          Virginia’s own Senator Jim Webb, himself a Vietnam veteran, proposed this new bill on 7 January 2007, the day after he was sworn into office.  In June of 2008, President Bush signed the Bill into law, with benefits going into effect on 1 August 2009.  This was truly a great day for veterans of the protracted Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns.  The door was wide open, and all we had to do was step through.

          Senator Webb’s bill was not easily passed, however.  The President Bush, Senator John McCain and even members of the Department of Defense were opposed.  The thinking was, at the time, that such an excellent benefits package would seriously hurt retention of active duty troops.  As late as early June 2008 President Bush threatened to veto the bill if it came across his desk.  Amendments to the bill, including transferability of benefits to the children and spouses of active duty service members, were made.  This compromise finally brought the Bill’s detractors around and the greatest veterans benefit package since the end of the Second World War.

          The benefits included are excellent.  A qualifying veteran is eligible to receive their full tuition paid, with a state by state variable maximum pay out.  Also, each veteran will receive the basic allowance for housing (BAH) that they would have received for their pay grade when they were discharged.  The exact amount of this BAH payment varies by their location.  In addition, the veteran receives a $1000 per year stipend to defray the cost of books and supplies.  This is a massive perk of service, and also a potentially lucrative recruiting tool.  The promise of a better education has been an enticement for veterans for many years.

          In all, the Post 9/11 GI Bill was a brilliant piece of legislation.  America has always tried to take care of its veterans, with varying degrees of success.  After the failure of the post Vietnam era, America has finally gotten things right.  I can only hope that it will last forever, and that there will never be another generation of veterans that gets the short end of the stick.

Shankar, R. (2009). Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008         Harvard Journal on Legislation, 46(1), 303-321. Retrieved from Academic         Search Complete Database.

Image of GI Bill logo retrieved 12/10/2010 for World Wide Web           www.veteransadvantage.com

Things improve, for a while

When I entered the Navy in late 1999, the GI Bill seemed like a good deal.  Back then, $18,000 for college seemed like a great deal of money.  Surely, this must be enough to pay for even a very expensive school.  But I was merely 19, and naïve.  Even in 1999, $18,000 was a pitifully small sum for school.  Especially when considering books, living expenses and tuition.  It would never have been enough.

          I opted in to the Montgomery GI Bill program during my first month of service.  I initially thought about passing on the buy in, as Illinois pays tuition and books for veterans who complete six years of active duty service.  A Petty Officer Augustine convinced me that it would be a good idea to opt in to the GI Bill anyway.  I am certainly glad that I did.  The cost of the GI Bill was $100 per month for 12 months, only $1,200 to receive $18,000 worth of education.  I have never made, nor will I ever make, an investment with that kind of return.

          After the decades long degradation of all veterans benefits that peaked during the late 1970’s, Congress finally began to pay attention to veterans’ educations.  In 1984, Gillespie Montgomery was lead sponsor on a new GI Bill.  The Montgomery GI Bill was a major improvement over the previous generations of veteran’s education benefits.  For a brief time, the GI Bill would again pay for an entire four years of college.  Also included in the new Bill were improvements to VA health care and loan benefits.  The major negative in the new Bill was a time limit.  Inserted as a compromise to win support for the Bill, the time limit would cause the benefits to expire if they were not used by the veteran within ten years of their discharge.  This clause has been a small and misunderstood detriment to this benefit, and many a soldier has been talked out of signing up for the GI Bill because of it.

          Initially signed into law as a temporary measure, the Montgomery GI Bill has the distinction of being the first GI Bill to be issued during peacetime.  In 1987, Montgomery’s bill became permanent.  For over 20 years, the Montgomery GI Bill was a major recruiting enticement across all branches of the military. This gave rise to a generation of veterans who joined the military for an education.  This did not prove to be detrimental for readiness, as was an initial fear.  These veterans had the same rates of discipline problems as previous generations, proving detractors wrong.

          While the Montgomery GI Bill has had several benefit increases, the rising cost of college made the benefit less and less effective.  Over time, less and less veterans began taking advantage of benefits they had paid for.  The system was in need of a major overhaul once again.  In 2008, veterans would once again have a program of benefits they could be proud of.  Soon, the post 9/11 GI Bill would begin changing lives.

Shankar, R. (2009). Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008.        Harvard Journal on Legislation, 46(1), 303-321. Retrieved from     Academic     Search Complete database.

Cartoon retrieved from http://www.bluestemprairie.com on   11/29/2010

A changing world.

When I was growing up, I remember watching more than my share of war movies.  I consumed everything with American soldiers that I could find.  They fought Nazis.  They fought the Japanese.  The fought other Americans.  But the enemy they seemed to face the most was “Charlie.”  I was fascinated by films set in the Vietnam War.  This was the 1980’s and these films were full of all the action, coarse language and gore that excite the imagination of an elementary school boy.  The stutter of the machineguns and the sound of burning napalm was a part of the soundtrack of my youth.  It must also be admitted that Creedance Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” has always sounded best when accompanied by the chatter of a Huey helicopter.

Television was no less a source for material influenced by Vietnam.  The A-Team wouldn’t have traveled the country, righting wrongs and causing general mayhem without their Vietnam experiences.  Magnum P.I. wouldn’t have been able to solve every problem of the Hawaiian Islands without his skills earned from being a Navy SeAL during the war, either.  The ‘80’s were a true product of the Vietnam war.

Unfortunately, not all portrayals of Vietnam veterans have been so positive and comical.  As I grew up a bit I began to see how the public, at least Hollywood, saw the war veteran.  Every other week, whichever cop show seemed to have the Vietnam vet portrayed as a rapist, sniper and always as an alcoholic or drug abuser.  This lead me to ask some questions of the only person I knew with any experience with Vietnam.

Uncle Earl was an Army medic during the late 1960’s.  He completed at least one tour during the war.  He very rarely talked about it.  In fact, it wasn’t until 2003 that he really told me about some of his experiences.  He always skirted around talking about the violence, choosing instead to tell stories about the terrible monsoon rains or how great it was when helicopters would bring in hot chow.  Then the dam broke.  He told me about things he saw and his buddies who were hurt or killed.   He gave me the general sense of how horrible it was.  The things he told me about what it was like to come home were, to me, the worst of it.  He was one of those who heard people chanting “Baby killer!” and had people spit at him.  He also told me other stories of young men returning from the war having dog feces thrown at them, though nothing like that ever happened to him.  I could tell, after all he had been through, that this was devastating. 

After the decidedly warm welcome home the troops from the Second World War were given, this was a slap in the face.  Every veteran deserves better treatment than this.  The result of this change in attitude towards the Vietnam veterans was an increasing disregard for their post service benefits.  Were once the GI Bill had paid for a very good education, including schools of the Ivy League, the rising cost of education was far outstripping the benefits paid out.  In 1975, the tuition for Temple University in Philadelphia was $1500, or over half of the GI Bill benefits paid out to a veteran in that year.  This would continue to rise throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s.  Whereas the WWII veteran would have their books and tuition fully paid for and a stipend of $75 per month.  Various plans to correct this problem were proposed throughout the late 1970’s, but no real meaningful progress was made until The Montgomery GI Bill in 1985.

Also of note during this time was the utter failure of the VA Hospital system.  During the late 1960’s and 1970’s, the VA’s budget was dramatically reduced, despite the fact that more and more badly wounded veterans were returning from Vietnam.  Conditions in VA Hospitals, especially in areas with high populations, were appalling.  An excellent pop culture example of this was the 1989 film Born on the Fourth of July.  This movie depicts a paraplegic Tom Cruise living and recovering in a New York VA Hospital.  This is the true story of Ron Kovic, a Marine Veteran, who lived these experiences in the Bronx VA Hospital.  These facilities were later investigated by Congress, leading to the restoration or closure of the worst of them.

I sympathize with the Vietnam veterans.  Many were drafted and sent to a war they did not want to fight.  They returned home to a country that seemed to hate them, and we abandoned to the general public with no support and a rapidly degrading program of benefits.  America is still trying to make up for these shortsighted failures and will be doing so for years to come.

Leepson, M. (1977). Vietnam veterans: continuing readjustment. In Editorial research reports 1977 (Vol. II). Washington: CQ Press. Retrieved November 11, 2010, from CQ Press Electronic Library, CQ Researcher Online.

Image of Vietnam Reflections by Lee Teter retrieved on November 19, 2010 from:  http://www.qsl.net/n/n6tx//veteran/

How it all began…

June 22, 1944.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, which would be known as the GI Bill of Rights.  He had seen the writing on the wall, 16 million GIs were about to return home from the most destructive war in the history of mankind.  They would rightly expect a reward for their sacrifice.  FDR needed only to look to the past to understand the importance of providing a comprehensive benefits package for these brave souls.  The eyes of history were upon him, he would not be found wanting.

A great deal of fear surrounded the creation of the GI Bill.  The wartime production boom, from the manufacture of everything from tanks to trousers, was slowing down.  Predictions of widespread unemployment for these returning veterans could potentially cause a second Depression.  Legislators in Washington could certainly not sit on their hands.  In response to this threat to prosperity, they drafted the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944.  In this bill, veterans were assured unemployment pay of $20 a week for up to 52 weeks, guaranteed home and small business loans, and assistance in finding employment.  While very few veterans took the offer of unemployment pay, one million of them attended colleges in 1946 and 1947.  By the end of the 1948 nearly half of those that qualified had taken advantage of the educational benefits.  In fact, from the end of the war until the end of the 1950’s half of all American college students were veterans utilizing their bill, the GI Bill.  This is a staggering number and shows the absolute success of this system.

With higher education came higher pay.  With higher pay came higher standards of live.  In effect, the GI Bill created the American middle class as we know it today.  This sense of obligation to our veterans, coupled with the real fear of total economic collapse, helped to fuel the economic booms that salted the later part of the 20^th century. 

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.  Despite repeated reworking of the original Bill, by the end of the Viet Nam War, it was a shadow of its former self.  No longer could a veteran return from war and have his or her educated paid in full.  A new day of mostly unused benefits and a drastic change in attitudes towards veterans in general was on the horizon.

Verstegen, D.  & Wilson, C. (2002). G.I. Bill of Rights. In J. W. Guthrie (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Education, 2nd ed., Vol. 3, pp. 928-930. New York: Macmillan Reference USA. Retrieved October 22, 2010, from Academic Research Complete.

Image of FDR signing the GI Bill of Rights retrieved on November 12, 2010 from:  http://veterans.house.gov/benefits/legacy.shtml