Our Veterans Returning home from WWII

World War II came to a final end with the United States dropping the atomic bomb on Japan, as I said yesterday, but what about our troops and POW’s who were still there at the time the bombs were dropped. There wasn’t time enough to pull out all military units that were still in Japan, in the surrounding areas of where the bombs were being dropped, nor was there time to go in and get our POW’s out.

WWII is a huge part of not just American history but the entire world. Allies fighting together for the common good, for freedoms and independence for all. It was the most widespread war in history. It is estimated that a total of 100 million peopled served during this time and 16 million of them were Americans.

The military veterans who served in Japan assigned to Hiroshima and Nagasaki where the two bombs were dropped, along with the POW’s who were housed close to these two cities, were sometimes referred to “Atomic Veterans.” These veterans were exposed to ionizing radiation because during the active duty service they were in the path of these bombs. Anyone who served in the United States Armed Forces and participated in atmospheric and underwater nuclear weapons tests from July of 1945 to October of 1962 falls under the category of atomic veterans.

The United States conducted about 1,054 nuclear weapons tests during this time including dropping the atomic bombs over our enemy. Imagine the radiation our soldiers were exposed to. Due to military secrecy it was very hard to get an idea of the effects of human exposure to the radiation fallout.

In August of 1997, believe or not it took that long, there was a health study done by the National Cancer Institute. In short, they found out internal exposures to Radio-iodine in fallout from nuclear weapons testing was the most serious of all. The health consequences were astonishing as you can imagine.

Believe it or not, our Veterans were sworn to secrecy because the government didn’t want fear to spread and legal actions taken by radiation exposed victims. To this day there are over 100,000 Atomic Veterans all across America who aren’t aware their oath- of-secrecy has been lifted. They are not aware they have the potential for a monetary benefit due to illness caused by their military service. So these Veterans not only fought to serve and protect us they took a silent killer home with them. They can go to the VA page and find the information they need to apply for benefits but how long will it take them to actually get it? Look how long it took them to admit these men and women were in need of help. How many had to die from this exposure before the problem was acknowledge? Wish I had the answers to that but your guess is as good as mine.

On the home front the American people cheered as their heroes came home. Their pride in the work these service men did filled the hearts of all American’s but times were tough, and jobs were now scarce. There was no longer any need for these defense contracts, building tanks, aircraft carriers, and other equipment needed during the war. Don’t forget, during WWII women played a crucial part of the work force in America filling in where men normally would be. They worked in factories, shipyards, manufacturing airplanes and proved they could do the job of any man.

Now the men return home and the families are trying to put themselves back together. Eventually these men returning home from war assumed their pre-war occupations that were being done by women while they were away. Of course women were pushed out of manufacturing and industrial jobs and the era of baby boomers started, leaving women no choice but to become full time homemakers. It was a time when women were expected to be stay at home moms and take care of the kids while dad went off to work and resumed his duties of taking care of his family. Of course that wasn’t what women wanted and so the women's movement was on the move once again.

As for our servicemen in 1944 the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, which was known as the G.I. Bill of Rights was having a bit of a problem passing through Congress since members of the House and Senate did what they usually do and stalled it in their debates. Believe it or not they didn’t like the idea of paying unemployed Veterans a whopping $ 20.00 a week. They were concerned it would stop them from wanting to go out there and get a job. What also concerned them was  sending battle-hardened Veterans to college and universities. You see back then college and universities were seen as a privilege for the rich, not the servicemen of this country.

The return of millions of WWII veterans gave Congress a chance to fix their screw-ups our WWI Veterans had to face when they returned home. It was their second chance to get it right. Harry W Colmery made the first draft of the G.I. Bill and brought it to the House in Jan. 1944 and it was sent over to the Senate a day later. Of course the bill almost found itself in the pile of dead bills because although they agreed on education and home loan benefits, they couldn’t agree on an unemployment provision. How could they not want to help them support their families until they could find a job once more?

The bill was finally passed with Rep. John Gibson of Georgia casting the tie-breaking vote and it was signed into law on June 22, 1944. It was up to the Veterans Administration to carry out the law’s key provisions like education and training so they could get back into the workforce, as well as loan guaranty for homes, farms or businesses, and unemployment pay.

Thanks to the G.I. Bill families who weren’t able to go college or become home owners now had better opportunities to do so. Many opted to go to school and take advantage of bettering themselves as opposed to going back into the job market and settling for whatever they can get. By the time the G.I. Bill ended in 1956 half of WWII Veterans were participating in the education or training program and nearly a quarter of them took advantage of the home loans.

Since then the G.I. Bill has been revamped twice, once in 1984 by former Mississippi Congressman Gillespie V. “Sonny” Montgomery and then again in 2008. There is a new law for active duty service Veterans who have served on or after Sept. 11, 2001 with even more enhanced educational benefits, living allowance, money for books, and the chance to transfer unused educational benefits to their spouse or children.

Sounds like they had it made, but we all know the government has not done enough for our Veterans. The ones who are hard to reach, the ones who don’t want to go and ask for help even when they need it. Even then there were those veterans who just kept it all bottled up inside of them and the adjustment to civilian life was hard. For some it just took a period of time to get back into the swing of things, to be around those they loved and know they were whole again but others, no matter who they were around, or what they were doing, they were never going to be the same again.

The deep secrets they kept hidden from their families, the horrors of war, ate at them. They didn’t want to go to the VA and admit they had a problem so they kept to themselves and distanced themselves from those they loved. It was how they coped, how they kept their family away from their nightmares. Then there were those who lived with the threat of cancer and suffered because of the radiation they came in contact with during their time in service. All that fallout and no one thought for a second what harm it was doing to our men, or perhaps they did but they just felt the end justified the need.

There were many Veterans who would rather see their own doctors then have to deal with the wait and scrutiny of VA doctors and staff. Trust me when I tell you it is still that way today.  As I go on with this series I will explain more about the ineptitude of the VA. Not stories I heard from veterans but things I witnessed in attending the VA with my ex-husband and friends who served in the military since September 11, 2001. You would think by now they would have found a way to fix it.

I know in my little town we celebrated the homecoming of our brave men who served us with all they had in order to protect our freedoms. They came home with war stories they embellished on, I am sure, but they carried that pride with them throughout their days. Even those who suffered from battle fatigue were still proud they served their country but angered about how their government treated them. It seems once they were home and no longer needed they were forgotten. I knew a few of the veterans who were treated at the VA in East Orange, NJ. WWII Veterans, who had no idea they were suffering from illnesses due to their time in service. They would go in to see a doctor and spend hours upon hours just hoping to be seen that day and if not they had to return the next day, sick call it was called. To get an appointment took months.

Still even with this treatment from their own government these Veterans were proud of their time in service and they very well should have been. They, along with our Allies, fought evil and won. They earned the right to wear their pride on their sleeve and have the government they served show them a little gratitude and consideration.

May God Bless America and the Veterans past, present and yet to come!