A reminder from Blackfive on the cost of service:

A Veteran – whether active duty, retired, National Guard, or Reservist….is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a check payable to “The United States of America” for an amount of “up to and including my life”.

That is an honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.

Indeed.

Via SJS:

Have received word via Navy Marine Corps Relief Society that the ABC Extreme Makeover program wants to assist one of our Iraq War veterans by totally renovating their home at no expense to the service member.

Nominations are due NLT 13 March.

It seems the GI Bill is not what it used to be:

The GI Bill covered all of Carl Edgerly’s college expenses in the mid-1970s. His son, however, expects that even with the maximum $1,075 in monthly GI Bill benefits, he will be saddled with $50,000 in student loans when he graduates from George Mason University.

…

Despite several attempts by Congress  to boost benefits in past decades, the gap has grown so large that many veterans are forced to take out sizable student loans.

The maximum GI Bill amount a currently enrolled veteran who served on active duty can qualify for during a college career is roughly $38,700. But for many students, that is not nearly enough to pay for tuition, room, board and books. And the GI Bill covers only four years of school, leaving veterans on their own if they take longer to graduate.

The average cost of one year’s tuition, room and board at four-year public institutions in 2006-07 was $12,796, according to the College Board. For private schools, the one-year cost was $30,367. Tuition and fees at all schools have risen 35 percent in the past five years, while the highest GI Bill monthly payout has increased only 20 percent since 2002.

I suspect DoD’s been dumping so much money into salaries and retention bonuses for active personnel, that this program’s slipped off the pay & benefits Powerpoint.

From the AP:

Lloyd Brown, the last known surviving World War I Navy veteran, has died. He was 105.
…
His death comes days after the death of the last known surviving American female World War I veteran, Charlotte L. Winters, 109.
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Brown was born Oct. 7, 1901, in Lutie, Mo., a small farming town in the Ozarks. His family later moved to Chadwick, Mo. In 1918, 16-year-old Brown lied about his age to join the Navy and was soon on the gun crew on the battleship USS New Hampshire.

“All the young men were going in the service. They were making the headlines, the boys that enlisted,” Brown told The (Baltimore) Sun in a 2005 interview. “And all the girls liked someone in uniform.”

Brown finished his tour of duty in 1919, took a break for a couple of years, then re-enlisted. He learned to play the cello at a musicians school in Norfolk, Va., and was assigned to an admiral’s 10-piece chamber orchestra aboard the USS Seattle.