Library exhibit traces history of veterans’ benefits

By T. Michael Sullivan

As veterans return from the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and begin to avail themselves of benefits provided in the recently passed GI Bill, they join a legion of former soldiers dating to ancient times who were compensated for their sacrifices.
An exhibit of the history of veterans’ benefits on display throughout November in the fifth floor gallery of the Healey Library at the University of Massachusetts Boston traces veterans’ benefits to 3000 B.C. when soldiers of the Egyptian pharaohs were rewarded with plots of land.
Assembled as a chronological time line by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the exhibit asserts that readjustment to civilian life has proven problematic for veterans throughout history and has often resulted in begging and hooliganism by wounded or maimed veterans of combat. Societies typically provided benefits to assist in readjustment and to ease the veteran’s burden.
In addition to a grant of tax-free land, Roman veterans received stipends to purchase farm implements and grain as well as a perpetual exemption from taxes and public service. In perhaps the first instance of a veterans-preference program, Roman veterans were also rewarded with municipal jobs.
French monarchs of the Middle Ages founded hospices for veterans of the crusades; Louis IX actually established the “Hotel des Invalides” to provide care for aged and disabled veterans, even authorizing a tax to support it.
The first instance of parliamentary provision occurred in 1593 when the British Parliament passed “An Act for the Relief of Soldiers.” American colonists used this as a basis for assisting New World veterans, beginning with the Plymouth Colony in 1636.
In 1776, the first bill affording assistance to veterans was passed by the Second Continental Congress, providing for a disability pension and half pay for life for any soldier losing a limb or so disabled as to be unable to earn a living. The initial federal provision was made on March 4, 1789, on the same day that the constitution was declared in effect, when George Washington signed an act to pay pensions by the newly minted federal government.
The establishment, in 1833, of the Bureau of Pensions, marked the institution of the first governmental agency devoted solely to helping veterans; it was overseen by the Department of War.
President Abraham Lincoln, against the backdrop of the Civil War, famously urged congress in his second inaugural address of 1865 “to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan….” Lincoln also instituted “soldiers homes” to care for veterans. A post-Civil War initiative addressed the difficulty veterans often had finding jobs with appointments to the U.S. Civil Service.
The 20th Century produced a flurry of legislation, expansion of benefits and consolidation of agencies to adjust to war and its consequences. The Army Nurse Corps, founded in 1901, produced 25,000 members who served in the First World War. These were the first women officially classified as veterans in the United States. By 1980, there were 1.1 million female veterans, and today about 20 percent of service members are women.
The World War Veterans Act of 1924 greatly liberalized benefits for veterans and included for the first time the presumption of certain diseases or conditions developing after separation from service.
In 1930 the Veterans Administration was created, the result of the consolidation of a number of agencies into a single one.
However, the landmark Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944, is credited with redefining the United States, promoting home ownership and access to education for many returning veterans of World War II. Signed into law by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and known as the GI Bill, it became one of the most successful pieces of legislation in American history.
With epochal regularity it was followed by the Korean War GI Bill, the Vietnam-era GI Bill and the Montgomery GI Bill of 1984.
The exhibit, sponsored by the William Joiner Center, is on display through the end of November during regular Healey Library hours.