I joined the Army National Guard in 2002. My recruiter met me in the student union of my college, and by the end of spring break I had enlisted as a supply clerk with a ship date that winter. The long wait time to get into basic training aside, the decision to serve came quickly and the decision was all mine. Now, mostly through my work as a historian, I understand that the decision to join was mine, but the pathway to that decision was very far outside of my creation. My ability to walk into recruiting station and join any branch of service I liked was an effect, not a cause. I saw the top layer of sediment on a riverbed that had been meandering since 1636.
I was drawn to the Army by the desire to improve myself and improve my community. That took its most urgent, visceral form, at that time, in the promise of college money. Though I’d been a strong student, I was falling through the cracks that many do when they discover the actual cost of college attendance far exceeds tuition scholarships and far exceeds what working and even Stafford loans would cover. I don’t know how it was I knew that the National Guard would pay for 100% of my college tuition, it was just a fact that we all knew. Allow me to set aside the huge recruiting effort that took—I understand that millions of dollars and man hours went into connecting me to that information—but let me focus on the fact that college and tuition and military service were ever connected.
The GI Bill
The idea that military service earned the veteran anything other than the pleasures of citizenship was uncharted waters before 1944. A few meager attempts at cash bonuses had floundered—after the War of Independence, the cash-strapped government even failed to payout most back pay for the soldiers who had fought. The resulting veteran protests were a contributing factor in abandoning Philadelphia as a capital for the safety of a new federal city. In the end, less than 3,000 Revolutionary War veterans received their promised victory bonuses. When five million World War I veterans came home to a recession after missing the best wage-earning-years of their lives, the ticker-tape parades and $60 in trainfare to get home eventually led to the Bonus March. This was one of the great turning points of the great depression, but also one of the great catalysts of the G.I. Bill.
The Veteran’s Readjustment act, or G.I. Bill of Rights, passed in 1944, could have gone a number of directions. Hundreds of bills in congress debated pensions, cash bonuses, continued military pay during a transition period, or unemployment benefits. President Roosevelt suggested if college tuition was part of the veteran’s adjustment legislation, that it be limited to the science and technology fields the U.S. would need to fight the emerging threat of the Soviet Union. The leading bill, backed by the American Legion, begrudgingly allowed a year of college tuition. Even then, many in Congress fought to reduce the benefits for women and minorities. The fact that the final bill provided four years of college education fundamentally changed American higher education. In the span of one year, America went from a nation where college was an elite bastion offered to very few, to a place where 47% of college students were veterans. More than that, the compact of military service had changed. It had gone from a duty of citizenship where service was its own reward to a quid pro quo arrangement where military service guaranteed college money, medical care, and home ownership. In other words, military service promised stability. Since I joined in 2002, I have gratefully used all of these benefits.
What’s incredible about the G.I. is that no matter how fundamentally it changed the nature of military service, it has been continually stripped away to provide less. I served in the Iraq war, but fell into the gap years where I finished a bachelor’s and master’s degree before the more generous Post-9/11 GI bill was passed, a course of events that I still feel bitter about. However, it wasn’t until 1984 that National Guardsman received any education benefits. At 19, I could see myself facing a future where I couldn’t afford to stay in college, and a middle class life was slipping away from me. The fact that I could change all of that through the National Guard wasn’t true for generations of veterans before me. I look back at the World War I bonus marchers, people like Senator Elbert D. Thomas who fought hard to fund four years of education in the G.I.Bill, as the people who kept that from happening.
Busting Through the Brass Ceiling
I was blessed to walk into MEPs physically and mentally fit for service, but the fact that this qualified me for military service was unusual over the span of military history because I’m female. Until World War I, women were not allowed to serve in an official capacity. Though that changed in World War II, entry standards were high, quotas started low, and women served in different ranks and pay scale. I was lucky enough to join far enough after the Army’s gender segregation that my enlistment was a non-event. I served in a military branch, not just as a woman officer. I wasn’t discharged when I got married. I can have children without being discharged. I haven’t had trouble finding units that would accept women or had enough opportunities at slots female soldiers are authorized to hold—all parts of the “brass ceiling” that limited opportunities so severely for female soldiers in the past. In fact, the number of assignments has continued to expand the longer I’ve been in uniform. These are some simple policy changes, but have meant that now, 17 years later, I’m still in uniform, a condition many of my sisters-in-arms from the past didn’t have available.
I’ve served in the Post-9/11 era. For me, that meant a year in Iraq and nine months in Djibouti deployed. That’s meant training missions all over the world, as well as glamorous places like Fort Pickett. I’ve gone to active component basic training and BOLC. That’s a basic list, in no way exemplary or elite. But as I look through National Guard history, I’ve served at a unique moment. Until the 1956, National Guardsmen didn’t go to active component basic training. Until the precursor to officer candidate school was formed in World War I, officers were selected mostly by family and political connections. I can judge that my family would not have made that cut. Until 1903, the National Guard didn’t get any federal funding. The National Guard I serve in now is fundamentally different than in the past, and I’m better for it. I’ve had the opportunity to spend nearly eight years on active duty or federal technician status while retaining the flexibility to go to school and be near family when needed. That didn’t happen without pushing incremental change.
The Transactional
One reason I’ve stayed in the Army National Guard is for the money. That’s an unpopular thing to say, but I know I’m not the only one who’s said this. For me, military pay and benefits have provided a comfortable, financially secure life. I point this out to say that the creation of the all-volunteer force came with a raise in pay—starting with a 60% increase in 1972 to put military pay on par with the civilian sector. Throughout the 1990s, quality of life programs I’ve used expanded, and the pay scale adjusted to provide better pay for the middle ranks. I’m very grateful that I can say the pay and benefits retains me, because that’s a benefit that generations of veterans before me didn’t have. The veterans who fought in World War II, who I believe endured far harsher conditions than I ever did, did so for far less pay and benefits.
The Transformational
Why I joined and why I serve may be very different things. I gain a great deal of satisfaction out of knowing that I’ve contributed to our nation’s defense, that I’ve helped my community during national disasters, and that I’m contributed towards some kind of civic good. That’s the intrinsic benefit of military service, and the one I’m most proud of. But I’ve also realized that my ability to do all of that in way that shapes me and supports me was a hard-earned process. My service is a link on a chain that started with soldiers, politicians, taxpayers, patriots, rebels, and thoughtful bureaucrats who altered policies and benefit structures so that a 19-year-old girl from Muncie, Indiana, was able to contribute. Almost every reason I could list of why I joined or stayed in – the money for education, the pay and benefits or the training opportunities started as a perceivedinjustice or an argument. I owe a huge debt to 1932 Bonus Marchers, the senators and lobbyists who shaped the G.I. bill, and the civilians who fought to increase military pay and benefits in the all-volunteer force. And now, as I revel in the ability to serve apolitically, I understand that for me, personally, putting on the uniform is the result of someone else’s political action. I serve in a much larger organization of citizen soldiers, walking alongside the legacy of those who have shaped our uniquely American way of military service.
