Recounting the history of veterans benefits

During The American Legion's annual Washington Conference this week, James Ridgway, chief counsel for policy and procedure at the Board of Veterans' Appeals, spoke to the Legion's Legislative Commission about the history of veterans benefits.

Several themes highlighted Ridgway's presentation, which recounted the struggle that veterans, dating back to the Civil War, have faced in receiving the benefits they earned through their service.

“A lot of what people think about veterans benefits isn’t actually true,” Ridgway said. “People tend to think (that) the GI Bill, and how the World War II generation was treated, is how we normally treat our veterans - and think that the Vietnam experience was the exception - when the reality is much, much closer to the reverse.”

The cost of Civil War veterans benefits did not peak until 1913, Ridgway said, four years before American troops fought World War I in France. At that time, veterans benefits accounted for about one-third of the federal budget. “This is typical. If you look at the patterns of conflict after conflict, benefits payments peak 50 years after. So when you’re thinking about veterans benefits, you’ve got to be thinking for the long term as a policymaker.”

The American public became concerned over the cost of veterans benefits and started to oppose them, Ridgway said, “and World War I veterans bore the brunt of that attitude.” The war created 4.7 million veterans and many suffered back on the home front.

“Suicide, homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction – these things all kept happening,” Ridgway said, “and we did not take care of the returning veterans after World War I because there was so much backlash against what had been paid out to the Civil War veterans. But the veterans had these real needs, and it led to the organization of the veterans service organizations that we know of today.”

The American Legion was founded in 1919 by World War I veterans. One of its main concerns, Ridgway said, was the hospital system for veterans, completely overwhelmed by those returning from France. “So in 1921, The American Legion helped issue a report that publicized the fact that shell-shocked veterans were being sent to hospitals for feeble-minded children because there was no other space elsewhere, and they were forced to sit on infant chairs.

“This was one of the first triumphs of The American Legion, to bring to light the conditions in the (veterans) hospital system, which led to substantial new funding to expand capacity of the system.”

World War II veterans got a much better deal through the GI Bill, written by The American Legion and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in June 1944. The law afforded 16 million veterans the opportunity to buy houses with federal loans and earn college degrees with education benefits; the modern middle class was created.

The 5.7 million veterans of the Korean War saw their benefits trimmed back by President Dwight Eisenhower; he was intent on balancing the federal budget and formed a commission to study the veterans benefits system and recommend cutbacks. Congress responded by passing a bill in 1957 that turned all regulations on veterans benefits into statutes – so the executive branch couldn’t change them anymore.

The statutes, Ridgway said, were “word for word copies of the regulations that existed, many of them since the 1930s. This is veterans law that we know today. It’s a World War I system, drafted in 1933 as regulation and elevated to statute in 1957.”

The Vietnam War produced nearly 9 million veterans “but they were very slow to organize politically,” Ridgway said. Many veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress, but it was not recognized as a medical disorder until 1980, when disability benefits could finally be granted.

Another major disability issue centered on the use of Agent Orange and other herbicides in the Vietnam War; 20 million gallons were dropped onto the Vietnamese countryside from 1962 to 1971 during Operation Ranch Hand. Ridgway said it wasn’t until 1977 that the first disability claim related to herbicide exposure was filed with the Veterans Administration.

In 1983, The American Legion sponsored an independent study by Columbia University that established the effects of exposure to Agent Orange on Vietnam War veterans. Congress received the results of the “American Legion-Columbia University Study of Vietnam-era Veterans” in 1989.

Since then, the Department of Veterans Affairs has recognized 14 diseases related to exposure from Agent Orange and other herbicides.

For about 200 years, Ridgway said, veterans were denied the right to have their claims heard in court. “But the Vietnam veterans tried again.” In 1974, they got the Supreme Court to acknowledge that a class-action lawsuit could be filed that challenged decisions made on veterans’ disability claims.

In 1988, Ridgway said a survey of veterans overwhelmingly supported judicial review of such claims. Two years later, the U.S. Court for Veterans Appeals began to hear cases on claims appeals. That same year, at The American Legion’s urging, the VA was elevated to cabinet-level in the executive branch.

“We shouldn’t assume that we take care of our veterans,” Ridgway said. “Taking care of veterans is something that we have to constantly fight for, because if we take care of them at the very beginning, then they’ll go on to do great things and have great lives. That’s what makes this really important.”