If not for the GI Bill

Their Park Avenue offices are separated by just a few blocks. Each grew up in a modest household. Both served in the U.S. Army during World War II, European theater. One enlisted; the other was drafted. Each received the Bronze Star. Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, after further service in the Korean War, led history’s largest insurance and financial corporation, American International Group. Henry Kissinger, now an international consultant and best-selling author, famously guided the U.S. State Department through the dusk of Vietnam and into the long, slow thaw of the Cold War. They are friends. 

They go to work every day envisioning a bright future for America and the world. And they have something more in common: both agree that if not for the GI Bill, drafted by The American Legion, the world would be a very different place.

The American Legion Magazine recently spoke with Kissinger, whose family fled Nazi Germany in 1938, and Greenberg, now chairman and CEO of C.V. Starr & Co., Inc., a global financial services firm, in their Manhattan offices. 

Describe your entry into U.S. military service and early impression of it.

Kissinger: I worked in a shaving-brush factory, and I went to city college at night, which was substantially free. I came to the United States and lived largely in a refugee environment. When I was drafted into the Army, after many different movements, I wound up in the 84th Infantry Division as a rifleman. The 84th Infantry Division came from northern Illinois and southern
Wisconsin. So, I was surrounded there by what I would consider to be fundamental Americans and readily learned day-to-day living with Americans.

Greenberg: I played football in high school, and getting gasoline to travel from one town to another to compete was cut off. So football season ended very early. The war was on. I couldn’t wait to join. I was 17. I hitchhiked to Newburgh, N.Y., and walked into the enlistment office late in the afternoon, and they said, “Where are you going to stay tonight?” I said, “I don’t know yet.” 

They gave me a ticket to New York City to some hotel they had arranged. They said, “Your mother has to sign your enlistment papers.” So I went outside, and I signed it.

How did the Army influence you early?

Greenberg: When the war ended, I was a tech sergeant. I was 19-and-a-half years old. That’s five stripes – one below master sergeant. Pretty young. I could have gotten a field commission about three months before the war ended. I was in Patton’s Army, XX Corps, and if you got a field commission you had to leave the platoon you were with and go elsewhere. I didn’t want to leave the platoon I’d been with for months, so I refused that. 

Kissinger: In the military, you are who you are. It doesn’t matter what you were before, or after. In my life, one of the interesting things was that I had – and still have, obviously – an accent. Some think it’s a trademark. But I was very self-conscious about it. When I entered the Army, nobody ever asked me about my accent in the three-and-a-half years I served. It wasn’t until I got back to Harvard that people started reminding me that I was foreign-born. So, the Army was a great Americanizing experience for me.

How did the GI Bill help you?

Kissinger: Before the war, I could never have dreamt of going to one of the elite schools because I had to work. I was admitted to Harvard and got most of my higher education there, and it was the GI Bill that made that possible.

Greenberg: I was interviewed by West Point after the war and told them I hadn’t finished high school. They said they had a prep school I could go to first. I wasn’t sure I wanted to start that low down after fighting through a war and being a tech sergeant. I took a commission in the reserves and came back, (but) I had to finish high school first, which was the hardest thing in my life at that time – going back to high school. I went to school in New York City, the Rhodes School. I got a room in New York on West 20th Street for $5 a week, way over toward the river. I didn’t know anybody in New York City. It was a very lonely time. It took a lot of discipline not to go back to the Army right then. I was very tempted to go back but decided to finish, and I did. And I went to college. The GI Bill paid for my high school, undergraduate and law school.

What was college like for veterans at that time?

Kissinger: When I came to Harvard, I was ignorant of the procedures, so I applied in April of the year I wanted to go to Harvard, and you had to apply over a year ahead. They accepted me, but then it turned out they didn’t have enough rooms. For the first three weeks, I had to sleep in beds in the gymnasium. I was 24 when I arrived at Harvard, and the (typical) freshmen were 17 or 18. Most of my friends in college were veterans, because of the age difference.

Greenberg: All the universities were jammed with vets. I got into the University of Miami. I knew some guys from my high school who were (there) so I went. I started taking business school courses, and I found that boring. I went into pre-law and then took my first year of law school there. Since I wasn’t going to practice down there, I transferred up to New York Law School and graduated. Then the Korean War broke out, and I was recalled almost right away.

How did World War II veterans defy concerns that they wouldn’t integrate well?

Kissinger: Veteran students at Harvard were outstanding. They were more disciplined. They had learned how to focus. They had more or less discovered who they were. Most freshmen, or many freshmen, were on a journey of self-discovery. That was natural for combat veterans.

Greenberg: Military experience rounded them out, made them different from what they were before. The discipline. The leadership skills. You have also been through a war. Life-or-death experiences every day. So your outlook is much different. You mature very quickly, or you don’t.

Did it occur to you then that the GI Bill would have such a profound effect?

Greenberg: I thought it would change me. I didn’t think of the whole country then. I wasn’t mature enough, in that way. It had tremendous influence, and I recognize that now.

Kissinger: I am afraid we took it for granted. Now, I realize the enormous impact that the GI Bill had. In those days, we sort of thought it was a benefit we were entitled to. But it was a very creative and original development. Later, I could appreciate The American Legion, not just for the GI Bill, but for keeping the spirit of comradeship alive and for the commitment to American defense, which is such an important characteristic.

Do you think the GI Bill’s grass-roots origin contributed to its effectiveness?

Kissinger: It certainly was an important factor in its long-term success, that it was done by people who wanted to make up, to some extent, for the years of service that veterans had given their country. They were focused directly on their immediate necessities.

Greenberg: The number of men and women under arms during World War II was enormous. You couldn’t just push them aside. And there was a feeling back home, I think, that we owed something to the people who fought that war. People back home were working in manufacturing, working at building aircraft, tanks ... you name it. The whole country was at war – some in the active war, some on the homefront. The whole country mobilized to thank those who did what they had to do.

What made the GI Bill so effective?

Kissinger: The success of the first GI Bill, judging by my own life, was that it was so uncomplicated. You did not have to submit a lot of bureaucratic material. You were not judged by various achievements. You were entitled to it, as a veteran. If you flunked out, that was your problem. But it’s one of the most – maybe the most – unbureaucratic benefits with which I am familiar ... the automaticity with which you could form your life, from being in the service to starting your education.

Greenberg: A lot depends on the individual. You have access to education and the benefits you’re entitled to, whether it’s health care or whatever it may be, even pointing you in the right direction for a job with some help from the government. But a lot of it you have to do yourself. You can’t become a slave to government assistance. You are trained to be self-reliant. You have educational benefits, but you have to use them. You can’t sit back and say, “What else am I entitled to?”’ You’re trained. Take advantage of it.

What did the GI Bill do for America?

Greenberg: It put us on a growth course. It took a bunch of young men and women and helped them get an education. They were all motivated. They were proud of their country. They were proud of what they had done. They sparked growth that never would have happened. The country as a whole benefited. Yes, we had to rebuild parts of the world afterwards, which created great opportunities. We knew how to manufacture. We knew how to train people. I wouldn’t have had the same responsibilities at 19 years old in normal civilian life. At 19, I was 25 mentally.

Kissinger: The big challenge for America at the end of the war was to reintegrate the millions who had interrupted their lives to serve their country and, secondly, to attest American policy to a world in which we could no longer be isolated. So, the GI
Bill performed two functions, at least. One, it enabled returning veterans to define a trajectory for themselves, supported by their country. And secondly, it enabled the country – on the basis of this reservoir of people who had been educated both in the war and then in the GI Bill – to perform a responsible international role.

What might have become of each of you, professionally, if not for the GI Bill?

Greenberg: Hard to say. I’d have done something. I might have played professional football.

Kissinger: If not for the GI Bill, I might have become a partner in an accounting firm, which is what I was studying before I was drafted.

What might have become of the United States if not for the GI Bill?

Kissinger: America without the GI Bill might have become a very divided country. Millions of people would have had to find an occupation and an education, above all, on their own. And the consciousness that the country was taking care of us was such an important element. In my case, I know that when I left the service, I could go to college and never have to think five minutes about how I was going to pay for it.

The war involved America in the world. But the fact that our people could educate themselves about the necessities of great power existence was an important element. Before the war, we were essentially an isolationist country. After the war, we became more and more involved in world affairs as we developed an educated citizenry that shaped that relationship.

Greenberg: There is no question what (the GI Bill) did to transition from the war to civilian life and to the economy as a whole. It changed America, really, over a period of a few years. You had this influx of people ... coming back, going to school, getting married, raising families. It made the transition possible. It made the growth of the economy possible. It provided fuel for the economy. And it worked better than anybody thought it would work.

Why hasn’t it been copied? We should. What about the vets coming home today? Why shouldn’t they have that benefit? Who deserves it more? I think we owe the current group of veterans more than they are getting. 

Clearly, many Americans – men and women who served in the military forces during World War II – were eligible for the GI Bill to further their education in one way or another. Like all students, you had to meet certain standards and maintain them, but it opened the door and was an opportunity for millions who otherwise would never have thought of pursuing higher education. Following their education, new economic opportunities presented themselves – better jobs with a brighter future than they would have had to look forward to. It also prepared them to start businesses of their own following their college education, and it was easier for them to raise money to start a new business. It made a generation of Americans more confident in themselves to achieve economic success and changed the economic growth of the United States. Better-educated Americans became a catalyst for economic growth in the country that would never have taken place. 

Jeff Stoffer is editor of The American Legion Magazine