My Life Be Like…

The G.I. Bill offers enlisted soldiers, inexpensive loans for education and homes, and did you know that in some instances, the military will actually PAY you to go to college? Well, its true, but only if you attend certain colleges. These colleges include the United States Military Academy (go black knights!), the Naval Academy, and the Airforce Academy. The soldiers who attend these schools are actually paid to go to school because of their salary that they get as a soldier, which means that there will be no annoying monetary debts to pay off after college, and extra spending money which is always a plus :).

The students do, however, have one debt that they must pay off, which is that in return for their free education, they must serve four years in the armed services following their graduation from school. According to the United States Military Acadamy:

You must serve at least five years of active duty and three years in a Reserve Component, a total of eight years, after you graduate. The active duty obligation is the nation’s return on a West Point graduate’s fully-funded, four-year college education that is valued in excess of $225,000

Two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars thats a lot of money! I never realized just how much money college tuitions cost. The US, however, doesn’t give this money out to just anyone, applicants to these schools go through a rigorous examination to make sure that they are right for the school. Some of the physical and educationial requirements to be accepted to USMA include but are not limited to:

• Participate in vigorous competitive team sports.
• Participate in individual sports that require sustained physical effort.
• Perform distance running regularly; two miles are recommended.
• Perform strenuous conditioning exercises - push-ups, pull-ups, and sit-ups.
• The best way to prepare is by starting off slowly and building on your physical accomplishments. Start with a two-mile run, alternating between running, walking, and gradually increase the amount of running. If you start early, you will be prepared to deal with the physical aspects of the West Point challenge.
• Four years of English, with a strong emphasis on composition, grammar, literature, and speech.
• Four years of math: algebra, plane geometry, intermediate algebra, and trigonometry.
• Two years of a foreign language.
• Two years of a laboratory science such as chemistry, biology or physics.
• One year of U.S. history, courses in geography, government, and economics will be helpful as well. If your school includes a course in precalculus and calculus in its curriculum, along with a basic computing course, we suggest you consider taking those courses because they will be helpful during your first year at West Point. - Usma.edu

These requirements put a lot of pressure upon the applicants to do their best to get into these schools, it must be hard, but imagine getting a free ride through college (well almost a free ride) when you otherwise would be paying upwards of two hundred thousand dollars in tuition fees. I would enlist and apply, what would you do?

        The United States military has changed a great deal from the way it used to be around the time of World War II. In addition to the different equipment and different way of running things, the people who comprise this organization are in no way the same as they were sixty years ago. Read any literature from that time period, look at pictures, even watch a movie about World War II and you will see that the average soldier going off to fight the war was white. He was going off to defend his country because it was the right thing to do, and it would make his family proud. Back then, the army was segregated, so looking back it was rare to see any pictures or hear about any black soliders or soldiers of other various minorities. Its amazing how much the army has evolved and changed since then, and all of this change can be attributed to one thing, the G.I. Bill. 

        The G.I. Bill offers inexpensive loans for education and homes to soldiers. It is a great way for people who are not financially equiped to pay for an education, to be able to get one in return for their services in the armed forces, which are often a good experience where the soldiers will learn valuable information that will help them later on in life. My father was in the army, and to this day he still talks about his experiences during that time and how he learned some of the most important life lessons there.

Mr. Olmstead asks: 

          Is it fair that the military attracts primarily America’s poor and working class because of economic incentives?  

        I don’t really think that the G.I. Bill is something that can be seen as fair or unfair for a certain race. It offers the same benefits to all soldiers, no matter what race they are. If it can offer those who otherwise couldn’t get an education, a chance to go out and get one than that is great. it is not reasonable to say that it is unfair that it attracts mainly minorities, because I know that if I was put in a position where the only way I could get an education was to go into one of the branches of the armed forces, than i would be in my fatigues the next day.