Ok, it's never going to come up naturally in discussion: Is your avatar a picture of Slim? (I find myself nearly certain it is, so maybe it has come up.)
I've always remembered (vaguely) his claims about the usefulness of time to think. Even as a general he seemed to need to make an effort when setting some time aside. What was relatively easy for him I can see as being a smidge difficult further down the ladder. At least without plenty of support from above. At which point study time could easily become mandatory ... which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.
It is indeed! He's the tail end of my series of Second World War officers in black and white - I had Hackett for a while before, and I think Montgomery, but I quite liked this picture.
I actually found my level of down-time decreasing as I rose in rank, for the simple reason that a private soldier has a structured working day with usually a lot of time off - when there's no major training or exercise on, you can usually call it a day by mid-afternoon; there's only so much training that you can make people do before it becomes pointless, and you only then have admin to take care of which is a product of your own efficiency. Once you start being in charge of people, that doesn't really happen, because your day ends when the day's work does, and even then you'll have emerging issues to deal with that require your attention. I can see study time being instituted for people who are being groomed for commissions like the one I received, but not for ordinary soldiers - again, the chain of command works for its own benefit, and if it's not going to get a better soldier or officer out of the training, it won't put you on it. Especially not in the current climate, where they don't need to work hard to retain people.
If I were made Lord Over All Things VA, I'd want to tread carefully to improve the options for veterans while not doing too much to encourage people to join the military, and thus not increasing militarism as society. "Support the troops" has always been a difficult issue for me. On the one hand, many of the troops deserve support (although there are exceptions), and it made a lot of sense as a rallying point in WWII and shortly thereafter. On the other hand, nowadays it is used to rally support for wars that I don't support (Iraq in particular, but Vietnam would also qualify). It's for that reason that I don't publicly "support the troops" - it can very well be read as "support the wars the troops are in". I'm not sure there's a good way to support the troops, but not support the wars they are in.
The white poppy (which I seriously considered wearing last year) is precisely that, it's a symbol designed to say 'I want to show support for the military but not for militarism'. The jingoistic levels to which it gets taken in the US and over here by the far right worry me, and I didn't feel entirely comfortable wearing a symbol which had been largely hi-jacked by nationalists. I think the best way to do it is to help military charities as often and as quietly as possible - after all, those are simply giving money to help people who need it because of their service. I've always made a point of giving money to Help for Heroes and refusing a wristband, because showing off your support seems wrong to me.
I wouldn't want to create a society where great numbers of people joined the military, and consequently all of society became more militaristic, because those in the military received major advantages in life.
The obvious solution would be to make the military very selective, so lots of people want to join it and they only take the best - even today its recruitment is controlled to keep manpower largely stable.
Expanding the GI Bill to include grad school sounds like a reasonable idea. Expanding it to include children seems a bit too far, though - it's primarily to help the veteran themself, and while funding the children would help the veteran financially,
hopefully the education they received themselves allows them to cover that expense. Spouses could also present issues, such as encouraging marrying early to qualify, and having people looking to marry veterans/soldiers for the education more than due to actual love. So I can support part of that change, but not the whole thing.[/quote]
The advantage of paying for schooling is that military parents can then afford to send their children to boarding school, so that they get a stable education rather than moving every few years as their parent is posted somewhere else. Military spouses have always been a mess, I think it's fair to say.
Guaranteed home and small loan approval also sounds like a bad idea for any group. While being an honorably discharged veteran does indicate some ability to deliver on commitments, it doesn't indicate fiscal responsibility.
Having been responsible for dealing with the ruined finances of actual soldiers, I'd say it should actually worry any lender!
It makes sense to say stuff like 'support the troops' if/when your troops are actually fighting to protect you and the country. This tends to not be the case when they are a couple of oceans away from your nearest coast. That looks more like an expedition, and at best would be realistically a first pre-emptive military action. But this is not what historically created positive sentiment for the troops (let alone that the US army is mercenery anyway, not drafted as in most of the main conflicts in time).*
'Support the troops' is different from 'support the war' - all that the former entails is believing that the people actually fighting the war (who probably signed up before it was even thought of) should be supported in line with the difficulties that they face as a result of service, and that the society which they represent has a duty not to abandon them when they cease to be fighting its wars. Remember that even the most unpopular war wouldn't be happening if there was enough weight of public opinion to make politicians seek a way out of it.
