Anniversary of veterans day in america. Originally known as Armistice Day and renamed in 1954, this is a day when we recognize the service of all u. S. Military veterans. We are delighted to mark this important day with a special event designed to salute americas veterans. Im especially pleased that our guest this evening include a fellow north carolinian who is the nations secretary of veteran affairs. The honorable robert wilke. The society of the cincinnati was our countrys first veterans group. So its particularly fitting that the secretary will be providing remarks. You will hear a little more about that in a moment. We are gathered here tonight to listen to a distinguished panel of noted historian who will be discussing the experience of American Veterans since the revolutionary generation more than 240 years ago. I also want to encourage you to return to Anderson House and visit us again and look at our very special Museum Exhibition americas first veterans. Its behind me and behind the fireplace so you may not go in there now. The exhibit opened last week, and it will go go until the spring of 2020. I am now asking mark williams, charnl of t chairman of the board of overseers of the society of the cincinnati to provide mark a very brief summary of who we are and what we do, and then to introduce our distinguished secretary. Mark . Thank you, pless. American reverlolution was the worlds single most important achievement furthering selfgovernance in the past 1,000 years. In may of 1783, towards the end of that war, the continental officers formed an organization with two primary purposes. First, they wished to perpetuate the remembrance of the American Revolution and the ideals for which they fought. Second, they wanted to perpetuate the mutual friendships which had been formed in the crucible of war. Of note our organizations Charter States that the spirit of friendship extends to providing care for ones fellow combatants and their families. The first such expression in our history. In considering a name for this organization, the officers were inspired by a famous roman leader, lucius quinton cincinnatius who twice voluntary gave up his near absolute dictatorial authority to return to being a mere ordinary farmer. Hence those revolutionary war officers those revolutionary wa officers deemed an appropriate name for their organization to be the society of the cincinnati. Note that the military ceding authority back to civilians may seem obvious today, but in 1783, it was nothing short of an extraordinary nothing like that had ever happened before. Even afterwards, there are numerous examples of the military remaining in control after successful revolutions. Consider napoleon, lenin, mao, castro and others. Membership in the society is limited to a few thousand men because eligibility requirements consist of being the eldest male descendent of a continental officer with only a Single Person being able to represent that officer. Ill come back to that. For the first 200 years of the societys existence, most of our focus was on the fraternal purpose. Frankly, thats because there was not much need to focus on the Mission Purpose as our nations founding was more roundly celebrated throughout america than today. For example, schoolchildren routinely memorized the declaration of independence and the constitution. They learned of the sacrifice made by ordinary folks to secure independence, to establish our republic, to create our National Identity and to commit the new nation to ideals of liberty, equality, natural rights, civil rights and responsible citizenship. Unfortunately, a couple generations ooh this start of education started to become tarnished. Leaders recognized theyd have to start focusing more on the remembrance of that vast event as our forbearers called it and its associated ideals. Furthermore, they recognized that their limited resources of only 3500 domestic members would not be enough to accomplish their enormous yet vitally important goals. As a result, the society created the American Revolution institute of the society of the cincinnati. Here eligibility is open to all who share our patriotic passion. As magnificent as the revolutionary war achievements were, like in any human endeavor, the results of the war and the civilian government that followed were not perfect. Notably, it failed to resolve slavery, womans suffrage and particularly poignant for tonights discussion, it did not address veterans rights. But lest we fall into the trap of presentism, the intellectual fallacy of judging the past by current standards, we must recognize that the revolution created an evolutionary process. Thats the beauty of our herita heritage. While it did take us a couple of generations to grant revolutionary war veterans a pension, the important fact is that we did so, and we were the first nation in the world to do so. As pless indicated if you havent had an opportunity to visit our museum, i strongly encourage you to do so. Tonight, im delighted to introduce the secretary of veteran affairs. Secretary wilkies background and list of accomplishments could take most of the evening but please allow me to share a few. Perhaps first and foremost the son of an army officer and grew up at ft. Bragg. Hes an attorney and currently a colonel in the air force reserve. He has more than 20 years of federal service at the national and international level, including being an assistant secretary of defense for donald rums feld and later for robert gates, as well as the senior director at the National Security counsel under condoleezza rice. Prior to that, extensive experience serving multiple congressman. And out of the fact this is this isnt a onebadge army here. Outside the federal sector, hes been Vice President of Strategic Programs for a multibilliondollar Public Company focusing on largescale engineering and program management. Academically, secretary wilkie holds degrees from wake forest, loyola out of new orleans, a master of law from georgetown, a masters in strategic studies from the army war college. In addition, hes graduated from several military colleges. He has published articles in multiple military journals and has been awarded the highest noncivilian award of the defense department, the Defense Distinguished Public Service medal. Please allow me to introduce you all to the honorable robert leon wilkie. And if i may take a line from casablanca, im glad hes on our side now. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Do you mind . Not at all. The pin reads, the American Revolution institute. Thank you, sir. Thank you all very much. This is a wonderful ending to for us at Veterans Affairs, this day of days when we celebrate the 41 million americans who have put on the uniform since the first shots were fired in Lexington Greene in april of 1775. It is important for me also to echo what was just said because it is an honor for me to be here amongst the keepers of the american flame. Those who fight against presentism. Who understand that people like the indispensable man over my shoulder are men embedded in their times and struggled as all humans do with how to make the best of what has been given to them. It was Winston Churchill who said after a rather mixed academic career that i let the smart children know latin for a treat but i hit them hard when they dont know their history. And this place drips with history. This society was founded in newberg, new york, where one of the seminal events in the history of the United States army, indeed, the history of armies in the west, was born when certain officers, including one scoundrel named gates, and i wont talk about him very much, were threatening to overthrow the order that that gentleman established. In the midst of chaos stepped george washington. He walked into the barn, and he started to speak, but he couldnt. So he pulled out a piece of paper and tried to read it, but he couldnt do that. And he reached for spectacles. And he said, forgive me, gentlemen, because i have grown almost blind, and my hair has grown white in the service of my country. The tears began to flow like rivers that night. And a few days, a few weeks later, he was in the tavern in new york saying goodbye to the tillmans, horns, Lighthorse Harry lee, henry knox, the founder of this soirkts or the first president of this society, and others who had borne the cause of American Freedom on their shoulders. And it is those ancestors that we honor most tonight. The process of turning the ideas of the American Revolution and the declaration of independence into Something Real required the most necessary ingredient in any fight. Soldiers. And in those years, this fledgling nation got an early glimpse of the importance of the men and women who stand up to be counted. In january of 1776, tom payne, who helped inspire the reading of the declaration of independence across the Continental Army by publishing, of course, common sense, things as you know were not going very well that winter. British troops had pushed washington out of new york, new jersey and into pennsylvania. That prompted payne who was retreating with the Continental Army, with what was left of washingtons dissolving army, to write the First American crisis essay that december. You know the first line. These are the times that try mens souls. But what followed was a lesser known appeal to the spirit of americas warriors. The summer soldier, the sunshine patrio patriot. But he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of men, women, tyranny. Tyranny like hell is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. A few days later, you know washington crossed the delaware and routed the mercenaries under johan rawl on that christmas day. A brilliant stroke that would infuse the american cause for years to come. America owes everything to those men and women who refuse to be known as the summer soldiers or the sunshine patriots. All through our history as we have spoken of national unity, the real obstacle to moving forward the boundaries of freedom and the only danger to america comes from within. That is not a new thought. Ronald reagan spoke of it often. In fact if you look at reagans thoughts on the American Revolution, they are infused with his observations of the relationship between two of the great masters of the revolution, mr. Adams and mr. Jefferson. Once independence was gained and a government was formed, partisanship ripped the bonds of friendship that these two men formed first in 1775. Thomas jefferson destroyed john adams in 1800. The night before jeffersons inauguration, adams slipped out of washington imbittered, sorrowful and broken hearted. But when both had retired, jefferson to monticello and adams to piecefield and quincy, they began through their letters to speak once again. As reagan reminded us in 1986, they wrote on every imaginable subject, gardening, horseback riding, jefferson even talked about sneezing as a cure for hiccups. But other subjects were there. The loss of loved ones. Abigail and charles adams. The mystery of grief and sorrow, the importance of religion in the Young Country and, of course, the last thoughts, the final hopes of two old men, two great patriarchs. It carries me back, jefferson said, to the times when beset with difficulties and dangers we were fellow laborers in the same cause. Struggling for what is most valuable to man, his right to selfgovernment. Laboring always at the same or with some wave ever ahead threatening to overwhelm us and, yet, passing harmless by. We rhodode through the storm wi heart in hand. That was their last gift to us. The lesson in brotherhood and tolerance for each other, insight that would make america strong and great as a nation. When both died on the same day within hours, july 4th, 1826, 50 years after the declaration was signed, america had what many considered to be a divine sign. I mentioned earlier 41 million americans have worn this nations uniform since the first volunteers took after the british on Lexington Green. Some of our greatest heroes are those who insisted on wearing the uniform even when being told they werent wanted or needed. One of them was a scratch farmer from eastern tennessee by way of North Carolina who would become the greatest hero of the First World War by capturing 132 german prisoners. With just a small group of men. He was one of Many Americans called upon to do extraordinary things. Another was a small, slight bespeckled farmer from jacksonville, missouri, who had never commanded anything except a plow. But he lied and cheated to get into the Field Artillery because he could not bear the thought of his friends and neighbors going to war without him being there to help them. He commanded a battery of the 29th Field Artillery called the dizzy ds. Dizzy ds were, as he once said, the hardest drinking grouch irishmen ever to stagger around the streets of kansas city. Here was a baptist leading people with names like maloney and driscoll and ofarrell. He wrote his future wife bess, i dont know whats going to happen when the first explosions hit and when the clouds of gas come. On a day, two horses were shot out from under him. One private looked at him trying to recover those bottle thick glasses and he said, harry truman dont scare worth a damn. There were some others who were there. The 369th infantry regiment from harlem, new york, known as the harlem hell fighters. When the United States army marched down fifth avenue on its way to europe, they were not allowed to enter the parade. When they reached europe, they were assigned to the french army because so Many American units would fight with them. In the two years that they were in western europe, the harlem hell fighters suffered more casualties, 1500, earned more decorations and spent more time on the western front than any unit in the American Army. And when they returned, the people of new york righted a wrong. They led the parade up fifth avenue when the American Army came home. Back to alvin york, that ordinary man called upon to do extraordinary things. York became a voice not only for veterans but for his nation. And as the guns of europe began to slowly approach the shores of the United States again, some questioned why america could once again be tangled up in the problems of europe. Didnt we just fight the war to end all wars . But york would echo Thomas Paynes remarks from the revolution and explain precisely why america had to fight. And he said liberty and freedom and democracy are so very precious that you dont fight to win them once and then stop. Liberty and freedom and democracy are prizes awarded only to those people who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally to hold them. When im asked what animates our work at va, i say its the stories of these men and women who sacrificed everything for us. It wasnt always so. President lincoln set the tone for us during the civil war by challenging us to care for those who have borne the battle. Just a few blocks from here, president lincoln would get on a horse, unaccompanied and follow ambulances up to hospitals that were located just north of the white house. He would reach in to those ambulances and Start Talking to those soldiers. Asking them how they were, what was going on. What could he do for them . But veterans of world war i many years later did not experience what mr. Lincoln had hoped when he issued his proclamation in the second inaugural that we hope for peace, fondly do we pray for, but in order to ensure it, we not only have to honor the soldiers who bore the battle. We have to care for their families. Just a few short blocks from here in the early 1930s, veterans of world war i marched on this town. They were met with tanks. Franklin roosevelt was watching. He sent his wife into the mist to tell those troops that everything would be all right and that change was coming. And a young veteran who served with york on the western front told the Washington Post that the army sent tanks and Franklin Roosevelt sent eleanor. A few years later, after world war ii was over, that great veteran of the first war came to the white house, and he understood the mistakes that had been made in between the two great wars. And unlike the predecessors at the Veterans Administration, he called upon his favorite missourian, general omar bradley, to take control of va. And in two short years, omar bradley administered 7 1 2 million scholarships to college for americans veterans. He built 52 hospitals in two years. And he pledged that america would never turn its back in the 20th century on those who had borne the battle. Once again, we fell down. As was mentioned, im the son of a combat soldier. My father was grievously wounded in the invasion of cambodia. He was a big man for his day 62, 240. Today, that aint an lsu quarterback, but in those days, it was a big fella. He was so badly wounded that he spent a year at an Army Hospital in hawaii before he returned home to us, weighing half of what he did when he left. And only through the good graces of general Creighton Abrams was he allowed three years to recover and return to the division that alvin york served in, in world war i, the 82nd. This time with the appalachian airborne. The allamerican division. The most decorated combat unit in the armed forces of the United States. And my father is a senior officer in that division. Was not allowed to wear his uniform off post. Friends, that was not cambridge, massachusetts. That was not berkeley, california. That was fayetteville, North Carolina, the heart of Richard Nixon country. There were no welcome home parades. The counterculture said it was acceptable to dismiss and criticize our soldiers who fight to defend liberty. And my father reeled from the crisis. I was in the company of ms. Linda hope, the daughter of bob hope, a few weeks ago as i dedicated our new cemetery in los angeles. And i recounted to her a story that i remember experiencing with my mother. Mr. Phil donahue was on television. And you know what he was doing. He was running up and down the aisles with that microphone in his hand. Bob hope was his guest. And he spent about the first 20 minutes of the show trying to get bob hope to say that the soldiers of vietnam were somehow different from the soldiers that bob hope entertained in the pacific and in korea during that conflict. That somehow they were broken. And bob hope finally had enough. He said, you know, the soldiers i saw at danang and way were the same soldiers that i saw on okinawa, same soldiers that i saw at saipan, same soldiers i saw in australia and the same soldiers i saw after the bulge. All i remember after that is my mother yelling from the other room, god bless you, bob hope. So today, though, we are finally people who praise the contribution of our warriors and know in our hearts that their service is all we have to defend our way of life. And while we can never thank them enough, we must continue to take historic steps to make sure that we fight for those who fought for us. We have final ly integrated the va with americas Broader Health care network. Were giving veterans the choice so that finally, if we cant provide them what we what they need, we give them the opportunity to go into the private sector. And for people like my father, after 30 years of serving, of being wounded and of jumping out of airplanes in the sicily drop zone at ft. Bragg and no longer have to carry around an 800page paper record that is the only source of their service both in peacetime and in wartime. And weve done two other things that i believe are absolutely essential. We have talked about history here. Im going to make reference to one of the more obscure successors to general washington, a fellow by the name of Benjamin Harrison. Now Benjamin Harrison is known for one thing. He served in between two nonsuccessive terms of grover cleveland. And that was his contribution. But Benjamin Harrison had served as a Major General during the civil war. And hed seen death on an unimaginable scale. And he was troubled. He was troubled by the reports that continued to come in from the War Department that hundreds, almost thousands of officers and men in the Frontier Army were taking their lives with their own hands. That was the first cataloging of suicide by the United States government. Ladies and gentlemen, today 20 veterans take their lives each and every morning. Of those 20, 60 are not in our va. But this is not this is not a crisis just of those who have worn the uniform. The leading cause of death for americas youth is not what it was when i was a teenager. Car accidents. It is suicide. The new York City Police department is now overrun with stories of veteran policemen ending their lives tragically. What we have promised this time is that we are going to take veterans, because most americans understand at some level what veterans experience, what their fellow americans go through when they put that uniform on and when they take that uniform off. We are going to finally have our First National conversation about Mental Health, homelessness and addiction. It is long past time that a problem that we identified in the 1890s be addressed by the people of this nation, and we are going to do that. [ applause ] and to give you some historic perspective, most of the veterans who take their lives are from my fathers generation. Lyndon johnson left washington, d. C. , 50 years ago in january. Thats how long their problems have been building. And it is long past time that we address them. So i want to leave you with a couple of stories. Stories that are important to me, and i believe important to those i served with and those i have watched growing up. The first is from the greatest of airborne warriors, matthew ridgway. He led them to victory in africa and north sicily. And general eisenhower tasked him with preparing the force to hitler. The screaming eagles and the bread devils of the british 1st airborne. The night before dday, he couldnt sleep. He actually fell out of his cot he was so restless. He was worried. And he reached for the Old Testament and pulled down the book of joshua and he turned to the battle of jericho. Up to that time, the most ferocious battle in the history of the hebrew people, and he looked to gods promise. I will not fail thee nor forsake three. In 1986, Ronald Reagan awarded general ridgway the president ial pr medal of freedom. And he said hero comes when they are needed. Great men step forward when courage seems in short supply. That is what we are about. Not failing or forsaking those who step forward when courage seems in short supply. Just as the warriors of 1776 stepped forward to create a new dawn for the west. And finally, we turn to the man whose greatest hero was the man we see above us, that was dwight eisenhower. When president eisenhower was inaugurated, he was told on day one he inherited a president ial yacht in williamsburg. Ike being a man of the heartland thought that having president ial yacht was an indulgence unworthy of a democracy at war and he ordered it scrapped. But there was one officer in washington, d. C. , whose orders general eisenhower could not countermand. Mamies. She said, no, ike, keep it. But when you take it out, only take it out with soldiers. So five months after eisenhower was inaugurated, you know the kabuki dance that was about to take place. The president pulls up to the pier at the Washington Navy yard. The secret service immediately deployed to separate the president of the United States from his troops. And only a fivestar general of the army could, do eisenhower yells halt. Get behind me. I know these men. And he walked up onto the deck and there were 40 korean war soldiers, most of them were missing limbs. The others were horribly disfigured. And eisenhower ordered those who could to stand at attention. And those who could do it, did it. And he said you have a Standing Order from me. You never put your uniform away. You live to remind your fellow citizens why they sleep soundly at night. And thats what were about. To never fail nor forsake the ordinary men and women called upon to do these extraordinary things. Who step forward when courage seems in short supply and whose existence reminds us that the cost of freedom is so high. That is why the work of this society is so important. To provide us with a link to the earliest times and the founding of this republic when a few people took on the mightiest empire the world had ever seen. An empire that was capable in 1776 of launching an Expeditionary Force over 3,000 miles of ocean with 30,000 troops. And they did it. And they persevered. And they set the world on fire just as tom payne predicted that they would. And it is up to us and part of your inheritance here to keep the flame of their memories alive because if we dont, then it wont be a foreign power that dips its foot in the ohio or scales the rockies. It will be us who have brought to end this great experiment that is really the last best hope of man. So i thank you for this high honor. I thank you for being here on veterans day. And for remembering again those 41 million who have taken up arms since those farmers stood at Lexington Green and fought back the greatest force on the planet. Thank you all, and god bless you. [ applause ] secretary, its a hard act to follow but well do our best. Im jack warren, the executive director of the American Revolution institute of the society of the cincinnati. This weekend, our society opened an exhibition. I opened the door so you could see into the room if you havent been in. Please do. Not during the program. Called americas first veterans. It traces the experience of revolutionary war veterans from the end of the revolutionary war through the 1860s when the very last veterans of the American Revolution died. All of them over 100 years old by that time. The exhibition includes some remarkable treasures. Thats one of the reasons you need to come back and see it or see it when the program is done this evening. It includes the original 1792 biography of deborah sampson. One of the first recognized women combat veterans in American History. She disguised herself as a man. Easier in the day whennal you had to do was draw your hair up tight in a ponytail, when men wore ponytails as well. Wore a continental uniform. Was a massachusetts continental soldier. And was wounded in battle near terrytown, new york. She took two musket balls in her thigh. And if anybody ever tells you that women dont make tough warriors, you see, deborah didnt want to be discovered. And so she dug one of those musket balls out of her leg all by herself. She carried the other one in her leg until the day she died in 1827. It was there when she gave birth to three children after the war. She was granted a disability pension in 1792 under the law establishing those pensions when the new federal government was established. And that her life story told in its First Edition is a great treasure. Another great treasure in the room is the badge of military merit. Youve all heard of the badge of military merit, even if you dont know it. Its a purple cloth emblem, silk cloth, very small, about the size of a half dollar. Its the First American military decoration bestowed upon enlisted men for conspicuous service. George washington established it in 1782, and it was revived in 1932. We refer to it as the purple heart. There are only two reputed original purple hearts surviving in the world today, and one of them is in the adjacent room. Dont miss it. But those arent really the great treasure. The reason i went over right before i began speaking to open the doors so that if you could see into the room, you could see the face of a very old man. Thats the real icon of this exhibition. Its a painting by george nagel. Nagel was a distinguished philadelphia portrait painter of the Second Quarter of the 19th century. And he painted this painting and called it a pensioner of the revolution. It portrays an elderly veteran who nagel encountered on a cold night in december 1829 on the streets of philadelphia. The man was living in a makeshift shelter. This sounds familiar, doesnt it . And nagel approached him. Nagel was on his way to a friends house for dinner but stopped and approached the man and beginniengaged him in conve which was difficult because the man spoke rather poor english. He was an immigrant from germany. It appeared that his name was joseph winter. And he had come to america before the revolution had settled in eastern pennsylvania in bethlehem where he was a weaver. And he had joined the American Forces and served in the Continental Army during the revolutionary war. After the war, he married. He had children. But by 1829, his children were dead. His wife was dead. Weaving requires digital dexterity, good eyesight, and those faded by 1829. He could do no more work and so he lived in the streets of philadelphia. A homeless veteran. That pointing is, as far as we can tell, the oldest portrayal of a homeless veteran in American History. Perhaps in the history of the world. Weve all seen that image, but we see it in photographs today. The painting is a reminder that the problems of veterans are not new. They are not easily solved, but the challenges that they face are challenges that they faced in the generation of the revolution. Challenges that they face today and that we as a civilized people must deal with. All of these challenges, symptomatic of the revolutionary generation. They survive in different ways today. Tonight were joined by a distinguished panel of historians who have worked on the experience of American Veterans. To discuss these experiences, explore how their experiences were in some instances peculiar to the circumstances of their generation, but also perhaps to establish some common themes. Theyve been waiting very patiently off to the side here. So let me introduce them to you. Brian matthew jordan. Brian, would you come out. Brian is assistant professor of history at sam houston state university. [ applause ] hes a cultural historian of the civil war and its aftermath and he is the author of marching home, Union Veterans and their unending civil war. And hes also the coeditor of the war went on. Reconsidering the lives of civil war veterans. Our next panelist is Stephen Ortiz who is associate professor of history at binghamton university. [ applause ] hes the author of beyond the bonus march and gi bill. How veteran politics shaped the new deal era and the editor of veterans policies, veterans politics. New perspective on veterans in the modern United States. N finally, miranda, youve been patient. Miranda summers lowe is a curator in the division of political and military history at the smithsonian. [ applause ] her Research Specialty includes the National Guard and reserve forces history womens military history and the gi bill. And she has served in the army National Guard herself since 2002, including deployments to iraq and the horn of africa. So you are our veteran of the evening. Thank you. The veterans of the revolutionary war faced challenges associated with demobilization and reintegration into civilian life. Those are fancy 20th century 21st century ways of describing it. Demobilization and reintegration. Many face challenges associated with disability, financial need, poverty and homelessness. And after the passage of several decades did our nation fully honor, celebrate and ultimately memorialize the service of revolutionary war veterans. My assumption is their experience set patterns that were repeated to varying degrees in the aftermath of Major Military actions of the 19th and 20th century. And that is what i hope we can talk a little bit about tonight. Before we dive in, perhaps each of you would tell us about your own work on veterans and what you see is peculiarly important about this theme for understanding American History more broadly. Ill begin with professor jordan. I have to put somebody on the spot. Ill begin with you. Sure. My book marching home is a social history of the men who won the civil war, but really couldnt bear the peace that followed. Previous scholarship argues that Union Veterans returned home from the civil war, slipped into a period of socalled hibernation for at least 15 years after the conflict during which they were to write or speak or to even think about the war. And the implications, of course, of that scholarship were enormous. For one, it supposed that he slumbered as the nation that he was somehow complicit in the bargain that achieved sectional reconciliation at the expense of a real reckoning with the war. And what my scholarship has done is to rather different approach and to suggest the myriad of ways that the war continued to annex the lives of veterans. Every day for the rest of their lives. And not only did they tend to a staringing litany of physical, psychological and emotional scars but they also returned home to a northern civilian society that had reached no consensus about the meaning of the war, their participation in such unprecedented violence, the meaning of emancipation and so billy yank comes home to a society that wants to remember a war that he did not fight. War that northern civilians remember was profoundly not the war that he fought. And so he finds himself adrift, needing urgently to explain and to contextualize his own experiences. And so i think the lessons there and the larger implications are really important. Because ultimately, he could perhaps get over what he had seen and experienced at antitem. What he could not get over was the way in which northerners wanted to swiftly embrace reconciliation, the way they wanted to move so quickly beyond the war. The way they wanted to frame this. And so he wanted to maintain authority over those experiences. He wanted to maintain his position as the custodian of the wartime experience and that was an ongoing battle for recognition and acknowledgment that would last the rest of his life. First of all, thank you for having me. Delighted to be here in this lovely room on this wonderful day. So my research and my writing about the role of veterans and their organizations, like this organization, although i tend to focus on 20th century organizations such as the veterans of foreign wars and the American Legion. The American Legion, of course, celebrating their centennial this year. And i focus on the way those organizations and the veterans within them have played an active role in american political life. Previous book has dealt with the ways that beyond that bonus march that we spoke about secretary spoke about. They have been active participants of the creation of the ways that americans handle veterans policies and handle Veterans Benefits. And theres a misconception, i think, that americans have always been unbelievably generous with Veterans Benefits. They have been somehow unanimously supported and, in fact, what has seemed to have been the case for a very long time now is that veterans and their organizations have had to fight and wage intense political battles consistent with longstanding political battles to get the benefits they think they deserve, and thats the focus of my research. Thank you for having me here this evening. Its a great honor. My research into veterans started out when i was serving as an Afghanistan War historian for the army. And i thought this will be simple. Its an operational story. And then i was charged with writing the mobilization sections and getting into the garden reserve. And seeing how in this era there werent those clearcut lines of being at war and being at home, that our Service Members were routinely serving commonly three tours of duty. Now were getting up to five, six, seven. And as much as i would have liked to keep it all within the military history perspective, that i really did have to look at what was happening between those mobilizations, which really pulled me into looking at that veteran experience, particularly how people were framing it in the modern era coming back into their service, whether active duty or reserve. And in that research, it really guided me back many generations before to kind of look at different iterations of veterans programs and Veterans Benefits and reintegration and how those programs had evolved for the Current Service member. I think really if you are looking at Current Events right now, a lot of the topics that well talk about tonight are very timely because these are patterns that do start as early as the American Revolution. Id like to begin, because this theme really important to understand the experience of veterans of the revolution, but i can tell its equally important for that of later conflicts. What happens to veterans at the time of immobilization . And professor jordan, youve already tipped your hand a little bit. But i was surprised to learn from just your brief remarks that you made how similar that experience was to the experience of revolutionary war veterans. In both cases in the vernacular, my expectation is that most modern americans would think that the vicars of the revolutionary war and the victors of the union army were men who could expect to get free lunch for the rest of their lives. They would be heroes from the instant they went home inspect the case of the revolutionary war, this was most definitely not the case. The army was discontented because it hadnt been properly paid. Most of the men were discharged in 1783 were given debt certificates by the Continental Army, which werent worth very much, and which they sold immediately for a few pennies on the dollar. And that was how they managed to get the money they needed to get home or to buy some basic clothes for civilian life. And that was it. And they reached home to communities which had been divided by war. Particularly in large parts of the country in parts of new york and in the south where loyalism had been common. Communities were really anxious to put the war behind them really quickly. And for this reason, they not only had they suffered financially at the end of the war and hadnt been promised made to them not full fid but they did not find themselves as welcome as we would like to think that they were. Same experience for Union Veterans. I think its a very similar experience with the one exception of yale. 1. 5 million men will call themselves Union Veterans after the civil war. So its an enormous scale. The actual physical process is remarkably efficient. 800,000 men will be demobilized in just a few months. All of that choreographs by the Quarter Master general. But no one really anticipates the social problems that will accompany the immobilization. Wartime voluntary aid societies, sanitary commission, Christian Commission which had done such marvelous work during the war. Theyd both shutter their headquarters in the fall of 1865. And veterans really left to kind of navigate their way home by themselves. And so much of this, i think, is the classical small r republican citizen soldier, this notion that theres a great fear of a Standing Army and that we want you to quickly cede any authority or distinction as you return home. And thats very palpable in many of the speeches that are delivered at ceremonies welcoming Veterans Home and then demanding pretty quickly that they get on with the work of their lives. Theres not yet that link to understand how the experience of war will continue to manifest. In terms of world war i veterans, i dont think there was ever a sense the u. S. Government was not prepared to reintegrate them into american society. The government had looked at the civil war Pension System in the civil war veterans process and during the war had set up a very clear bureaucratic approach to integrating veterans in terms of health care and in terms of vocational training, employment services. But they were scattered amongst a bunch of different federal agencies, Public Health service, vocational services, the army does quite a bit of this. And but were speaking in washington so that scattering of bureaucratic goals, right, is necessary and so despite the fact that world war i veterans were the target of lots of legislation to ease that transition, they simply overwhelm what the government had expected in terms of these services. This will ultimately lead to the creation of the Veterans Bureau that will consolidate all of these different approaches. This is not something they were quick to address. The federal government is not quick to address this. It is the American Legion, the officials of the American Legion who Pressure Congress to take the necessary change, one. Two, both the veterans of foreign wars will set up a very important part of washington which is washingtonbased lobbying arms. Theyll set them up right after world war i. And they become part of the congressional world of testimony and of button holing congressional members to push for the types of changes necessary to reintegrate world war i veterans into American Life. So it is a struggle, right . It is definitely a struggle, despite the fact, again, no country probably was as prepared to have dealt with that struggle as the u. S. Government was circa 1918, 1919 in that time period. Theres not an easy answer in what demobilization the one hand you have the advantage that weve had really 18 years to work on it and tried a lot of different approaches. Which i think is one of the first things you see in this period that were to the point where we have, depending on how you want to count it, roughly the same number of veterans as world war veterans. Youll see that you try different methodologies for how to do this. And the other thing that i would bring up is just the speed that it is possible to demobilize, where in an emergency, we can have a Service Member from combat to their living room in 24 hours. That can happen. So even where previously it would have taken how long to even get you back from europe to the states, plus the demobilization. So youll see this pattern where were spending anywhere from four days to two weeks, maybe upwards of a month to send someone back home. And theres been, you know, a few different complications of that. Especially, i think, if we knew that these wars would have lasted that long, we would have done demobilization differently. Some early reports coming out of these mobilizations around 2004 were showing about 40 of soldiers. This was an army report. Demobilizing were already medically unfit for the next deployment. But the mindset is we wont need them for the next deployment. We can push them off active duty or back to their units. Theyll have time to recover. So i think you really see that time factor in just the scale. But you can also see how there was a better infrastructure for this generation of veterans to come in. These existing strong lobbyist groups with a stronger va and just, you know, so many living veterans from other conflicts who didnt want to see the same thing happen again. If i can share an experience from my deployment to iraq, when we got back, this was a whole unit. We landed in new jersey. There was snow on the ground. Nobody could even breathe the cold air. There was a group of Vietnam Veterans there waiting for us. And they made us breakfast. We had a chaplain come up. Youre going to spend about two weeks demobilizing. Im going to tell you why. I was in vietnam. It took about two days for me to get home, and i looked down one day in my mothers home and i realized the dirt under my fingernails was still from vietnam. So youll be a little bored here, but were at least going to get you back on the right time zone. Youll take the time to see a doctor, see a dentist before we send you home. That was during the era where you were spending about two weeks demobing. For many its back down to two or three days and thats usually at the persons request because at this point, its so common to go out and back and those kinds of services are available more that can walk into the va, right . Like they dont necessarily have to do that when they are still coming back from that deployment. I would like to pick up on something miranda just mentioned. What we havent mentioned is a very successful demobilization of world war ii veterans. And one of the reason yes the world war ii, all of you im sure know the gi bill paved the ground in 1944 for the readjustment into American Life and that demobilization process. But it is not a coincidence that that gi bill had more or less American Legion authorship. Basically American Legion writes the gi bill, right . Because that generation of world war i veterans, much like the Vietnam Veterans that miranda just described, were intent to not have the same level of of a system being overwhelmed, of poor readjustment, all the different whether it be from unemployment to the Great Depression. Whatever. You name it. They were intent to not have that replicated with the world war ii generation. And in the year before they write the gi bill, open up their doors to world war ii veterans and then start pushing for a gi bill. And so that crossgenerational veterans attention ends up being a really important part of the veterans story of readjustment over time, or of not readjustment and just when it comes to Vietnam Veterans not feeling adequately prepared to come home by the world war ii coho cohort. These are powerful and whats handed off from one cohort to the next matters a great deal. Theres an enormous difference between the three wars or the four wars the three of us represent and the modern conflicts which miranda studied. And thats our wars ended, clearly. They have closure. Korean war veterans would contest that. Yeah, korea you know, i would lump korea in with vietnam. Its much more ragged. Whatever the flaws of the way in which the government handled the resolution of the revolutionary war or the civil war or the first or second world war, we know when they came to an end. Your guys got parades. Mine didnt, but thats but there was a moment of closure. And of Group Identity which i think is lacking in a way for veterans of these almost interminable conflicts. It will be very difficult, those of us who teach history, to ever ask students, when did the conflict in afghanistan begin and end . Wed expect ft. Sumter and apmatics. And then it has to affect the way veterans are perceived. And their own experience. They do not represent a single codery in the way those early wars do. Is that fair . I think as a society, americans like the idea of the citizen soldier picking up and serving your country and performing that duty. We also love the idea of the military professional that we are trained, we are regulated, and especially since the allvolunteer force, military careers are stretching out. I think thats part of the difference as well that we hold both of these ideals in very high stature. And they dont necessarily always get along with each other. Doing your twoyear stint not the same as doing 20 years, getting a pension and with these wars going on so long, i think were moving more into that where we have so many people where they are veterans, but theyre also still in uniform or serving in some fashion. It kind of pulls at that idea whether or not they are still, you know, serving their country and reacting lets turn for a few minutes to we are entering some Dark Territory here, but disability, financial need, distress, poverty. The origin of pensions of various kinds. In the English Speaking world they go back to elizabethan laws and thats their root. When disabled soldiers were sent home from the battlefields of england or europe and in the english army, if they were had been disabled, particularly if they had been crippled in the war, if they lost a limb, the government made a commitment to support them. But it looks, at least to the historian, like a commitment to keep them off the local poor rolls, not impose them on the local relief system. Thats the greatgrandfather of all military Pension Systems, it seems is a form of poor relief. And even into the debate about revolutionary war pensions in the very early 19th century when revolutionary war veterans were in their 50s and then 60s and 70s and this debate was heating up, it is mostly a debate about relieving poverty. And not so much one of providing veterans with compensation just compensation for duty faithfully. Theres a big change in america in the 1820s over that issue. Its the first big pension histt produces the pension act of 1832, which is the first General Service pension. But even thereafter, there is a residual sense that this is not something earned, but something given. Im wondering how has that died, for Union Veterans of the civil war, when they begin drawing pensions, is there a sense of popular resentment, misunderstanding . Union veterans were keen students of history and understood the resistance they would face in fighting for a pension. James mccormick dalzell, popularly knowns as private of the 1 16 of ohio, wrote one of the early biographies of john gray, the last surviving revolutionary war pensioner, so they connected their own experiences to those early debates over revolutionary war pensions. They understood just what they would face. And in the space of their veterans organization, the sb the largest veteran supporter, they begin to articulate a strikingly modern notion. They began to make the argument around their ga are campfires that pensions were debt of gratitude that took honor, and they would sue for a capricious definitions of who was entitled to a pension. Initially there were pensions for folks who were missing arms and legs as a result of battle, a pension of eight dollars a month end officers up to 30 a month. But due to the activism of the ga are over time, over the late 19th century, you get pension legislation legislation, the 1890 pension legislation that you get a disability pension for anyone who was honorably discharged. And you get the pension act that would provide basically an oldage retirement pension. But they are the first to articulate this notion that there is a special relationship between the federal government and veterans, and they do that in the space of the gar, and the gar itself, when those pensions are inadequate, the gar is doing a lot of the work of poverty relief in the late 19th century, fraternity, charity and loyalty where there are three hallmarks. They are paying for costly medical procedures, the government refuses to pay. There burying soldiers and poppers grades, they are heating soldiershomes for the winter. So once you get this pension labyrinth, it is still maybe not enough. The world war i era legislation looked at what what brian suggested and said, we want none of that because it has been corrupt, incredibly expensive, and what we will do is give pensions to serviceconnected disability, absolutely, vocational training, we will help them with unemployment services, we will get them reintegrated, but we are not doing a pension. Colloquially as the bonus, which then leads to the bonus march. Buddy pension was seen as completely young the pale of a progressive era, cost and efficiency minded bureaucrats were interested in doing in the early 20th century. However, something did change a great deal, and pensions were seen not just as poverty relief but as oldage poverty relief. And between 1919 and 1945, and there is the Social Security act of 1935, and that changes the conversation about pensions, because oldage pensions that were seen as only for veterans now become part of American Life, with federal involvement in oldage pensions. That changes the nature of the conversation going forward. So the g. I. Bill doesnt deal with old age pensions, Social Security is there, it does deal with forwardlooking things like education and home loans and Small Business loans and veterans preference and all these things to help veterans reintegrate, but not pensions. I was hoping you would bring up the words new deal, because looking at the original g. I. Bill it makes a lot of sense in the context of a new deal program where government is expanding rapidly, getting into a lot of new areas of American Life, whether it is transportation or oldage care and even medical care. When you move into the allvolunteer force, there were conversations early on where a lot of famous economists in the room were like, what if we could make military service marketbased . A young Milton Friedman was there, and they wanted bonuses and they were like, we need to make this entirely marketbased. But the idea that you would have enlistment bonuses and Retention Bonuses and, should combat arise, you would get a combat bonus, but not as much on the social service side of things. That idea i did not work well, so bonuses were never responsive enough to what was happening, both in the life and health of the department of defense as an organization and also what was happening in the civilian economy. So in a way, we dont do the combat bonus anymore. In other ways, we really do, because it is really expanded, we get paid much better and get a lot of these other services in the military that you didnt use, whether it is family care appeared but you also have to look at how other countries have structured this. I was talking to a canadian officer once and we were looking through their military costs and i was, that is a lot cheaper, because you dont pay for college and dont pay for health care because anyone gets that. So we have structured things differently in america and those Services Become military expenses, Like Health Care for military families or tuition assistance, and to an extent some of these bonuses as well, but we dont do the same, spend two years in, you get a victory bonus. I think a lot of people would be satisfied by that idea, but hasnt been the way that we have done it. The Veterans Service organizations have continued that level of care for veterans in their local immunities. When you talk about pensions really being about poverty relief, it was away for Veterans Services organizations to operate, first get charitable lay but also connections to employment and connections to Small Business ownership and these other ways that are in effect poverty relief, all these things are, but often conducted more through the organizations and locally than they are as a federal pension. Secretary wilkie talked and we gave him a hearty round of applause when he talked about an Energetic Initiative to deal with veteran homelessness. I invited everybody to look at this portrait during my opening remarks, at this portrait of a revolutionary war veteran who was homeless who the artist met on a makeshift shelter on the streets of philadelphia. Im sure tonight home shift a makeshift homeless shelter on the street in philadelphia, one might assume they are a homeless veteran. We meet them on the streets. They have a cardboard sign, and whether they are authentic veterans are not, they are claiming the status of veterans because they feel that a veteran has a claim on our, on what . On our generosity . On our gratitude . This seems to be an unresolved question, through our entire history we have been struggling with it. The thing i learned so far, the more time passes, the more these things stay the same. We have many of the same issues today that we had in 1820. Is that fair . Do you feel, in the years youve studied, we have made dramatic progress . In infrastructure issues, we have made progress. Civil war veterans did not have a Veterans Administration to return to. They only had a nation pension bureau. So in infrastructurely we have come a long way in dealing with veterans issues. What we havent done so good of a job as a ntion in doing is realizing the deeper, more intellectual issues about the meaning of service, and what that entails. Do veterans, should they continue to have authority over the history of their war . What does that look like . What does acknowledgment and recognition look like . Those are questions that are much more difficult for us to answer. We have had no national, meaningful conversation nationally about rituals every integration. For civil war veterans, it was finding a space to share their war stories, honestly and urgently, finding respectful audience where they could mix and contextualize their experiences. That is so much more important to veterans, or as important as infrastructure issues, and that is the piece that has been difficult for us to get at as a nation. It is difficult, and part of the problem is the Veterans Affairs is very keen to say that, if men and women go into combat and come back, we have the tools to reintegrate them into civilian life, and quite simply, that is not always the case. But that ethos of rehabilitation has been a difficult one. The percentage of veterans who lead normal, Productive Lives is very high. So when we focus on the homeless, that is not a normative experience. We have said that when we send men and women into conflict, we have the means, we havve the professional skill, the national will to make that right. And the professional skill, the national will, have not always been commensurate to that challenge. So this problem persists, and i dont know if there is a good answer to it. I know many collective endeavors, starting in the vietnam era with vets centers of 19781979, many communitybased approaches to these challenges appear to be the best way to go. We also have an enormous for structures of hospitals and what have you, so to balance out those economic imperatives as been difficult. There is an attempt to put more into communitybased efforts, but again, the national whalen professional skill has not always been there and able to deal with these challenges. At least from what i have seen, we have a tendency to focus on the end of the road, whether its homelessness or suicide or permanent disability, and what i have seen really improve over the last decade is the willingness and the national will to address a problem before it hits that point. So, looking at factors like who needs consistent Mental Health care, who is a disabled veteran who can still work but needs help with that, who was underemployed, who looks like they have a nice life, they are not homeless yet but it is a daytoday struggle, i think those programs are gaining a lot of momentum. I think that will be the future, where this is going, but it is harder to get people passionate about programs like that. And i think that within a lot of these veterans communities, they are getting more understanding, but over time there has been an issue, are we the ones who give service, are we the pillars of the community who run the fourth of july parade, or are we the ones that need the charity . And looking within organizations and perhaps the communities to see who does need that care early on. Let me reach a happier place, but just as complicated as these, which is how we come to celebrate, honor, or in your thinking, take control of the memory, of war and the service of soldiers who hold that close to themselves, in the early decades, certainly, after their service. We see it in the work we did on this exhibition, looking at the earliest published memoirs of ordinary soldiers of the revolution, which i think are some of the earliest published memoirs of enlisted men probably ever published in the world, in which they talk about their experience. And they all say at some point, im going to tell you about something, i know you think you know the story of the American Revolutionary war, but you dont. If you werent there, you cant really grasp it, i can only give you in these few pages a pale approximation of what this experience was like. End then they try to convey the harrowing experience of war, and you can see at this point in 1820s and 30s, they have a strong proprietary sense about that story. It is their story. But by the 1830s and 1840s as they grow older, at least society seems to have a greater inclination to remember fondly, to memorialize their service, you see the first monuments, and that is a pattern replicated over and over again, and it takes decades for a society to reach that place. Is that fair . By 1913, the 50th anniversary of gettysburg, 1938, you get the blue grade reunions at gettysburg, veterans ready to reconcile, but simmering beneath the surface were lingering sectional animosities, and many of the most grievously wounded and injured veterans had already passed away and indeed many would die within a decade of appomattox. Veterans of the union believed they were to be the custodians of their history. They felt a greater urgency to write, to record, to talk about their experiences. I will give you one example, 24yearold daniel eldridge, who fought with a New Hampshire regiment, brought home a souvenir from a battle, a piece of lead wedged in his arm. The first thing he does when he gets home in 1865 is to begin work on a memoir, what he believes at first will consume no more than a dozen pages, but he urgently begins to write, to understand and conceptualize his experience, his injury. And daily work on that memoir, by 1867, brought it to more than 600 pages, including hundreds of battle maps. He is writing through his pain with every new word sending currents of pain traveling up that limb as that rebel lead is pressing his tendons. Republic meeting halls became museums, reliquaries of artifacts, battlefield relics. Veterans would collect regimental histories, they would hold reunions simply to swap war stories, they published newspapers in every major city, not just to engage in the work of charity, but to engage in this active recording what they had done, for themselves and for posterity. That is a tough one because world war i veterans were pretty active right after the war in the terms of commemorations, building of statues, building of stadiums, all kinds of different monuments to the world war i cause, and even the creation of the American Legion as a monument to Wartime Service is an active memory production. So they are active early on. The world war ii generation takes some time. I would point to one difference between the world war i and world war ii generations. The meaning of the war for the world war ii generation was never in doubt, but what world war i meant was very much questionable for those who came back from france. What was it exactly they were fighting for . How should it be rise should it become a member aided how should it be commemorated . How should fighting in the trenches be remembered, as victimhood, sacrifice, valor . Veterans and their organizations worked very hard to put their stamp on what the meeting on what the meaning was for them, right away i think, whereas you hear stories from the world war ii generation, they all came back, went to school and they all had kids. That was their active commemoration, to forget about it, to leave the Great Depression and world war ii behind and get on with a productive, successful life. The world war i generation was different, not to mention at all the way this was addressed in terms of literature, so lost generation novelists and poets who immediately start working on what the were experience was like, trying to understand and shape the memory of that war. So they are two very different qualitative experiences based on the types of conflicts, the generations involved, and the ability to go to school and start having kids that the world war ii generation had, thanks to the g. I. Bill. I dont have a lot to say about what global war on terror memorials will start to look like, the first are starting to come up, but i cant give a little about my daily commute. Those of you who have lived in washington, you see most of those buildings were built in the 1950s and 1960s, and if you would have walked through that area at the end of world war ii, you would see the capital, Natural History museum, a bunch of government buildings, and part of that plan is that we were going to have a Great War Museum on the mall. This gets set up after world war i, we are going to have this great place to show our technology, tell the story of our military servicemembers, and that gets interrupted by world war ii, including taking some of the equipment back so it can be used again. By the time it is time to build this again, it is the vietnam era at the appetite for National War Museum on the mall is not there. And it takes great forms now in the smithsonian and others, but what is interesting is that up until that point, the National Mall was not an area for war memorials. Then you get the vietnam memorial, and that sparks the Korean War Memorial in the world war ii memorial. There are a couple of things that are interesting about that. We have these great memorials and monuments on the mall, but dont necessarily have the information and understanding. There are wonderful military museums across the services, excellent military histories in those museums, but we dont have the same place where you go and learn. On the other hand, these monuments are very much veteran driven, getting them they are and they take different forms, vietnam being one of the most famous, a place of healing. By the time the world war ii generation came around and the energy for that memorial is built up, it is monumental and a place of reflection. So we have the National Mall being this beautiful place where there is discussion about war, but very much crafted by the people who served in those wars. And is all of you should probably know, there is still a hotly contested plan for some kind of world war i memorial. And when people say, there is no world war i memorial, i always say yes, in washington there is not a National Memorial on the mall. There is a memorial to washingtonians who died in the war, but not a federal one. But there is in kansas city, commemorated in 1921, and in indianapolis, a rich, rich memorial space for world war i that was created immediately after. These were built in the 1920s. So the world war i memorialization is diffuse, and it is not in washington. It is everywhere, but nowhere, essentially. And quite beautiful in europe, the American BattlefieldMonument Commission overseen by general pershing, the three primary world war i memorials in france, which is quite staggering. I want to thank the three of you for being with us tonight. [applause] and give the audience an opportunity to ask questions. You can cover anything from 1775 to present. We might be here a long time. Is this working . You have two professors up there and somebody who served. Thank you for serving. To the professors, what do your students think of the military and what your colleagues think of the military . And after the answer, what can you do to change that . Brian teaches at an institution that has a large veteran population, and is better poised to answer the question. Suny binghamton is a place that was very much antiwar in the 1970s, very strongly antiwar. I have heard many stories from Vietnam Veterans who went to school there and had a horrible time. So the institution has a reputation as being inhospitable to military history. I think that has changed profoundly since 9 11. There were upwards of 55, a lot, of binghamton alum that were in the towers when they came down, and i think that changed the understanding of what war and subsequent military service mean to binghamton students in particular. We also have a large jewishamerican population, many of whom either plan to server will serve in Israeli Defense forces, so their understanding of military service is informed by that perspective. What used to be atypical used to be a liberal, left, left antiwar campus has changed. There are some not particularly interested in military history, but my esteemed colleague Diane Sommerville just won to book prize on the American Civil War and the suffering of people in the civil war, and colleague howard brown teaches and writes about the french revolution and talks about violence and war. So that storyline of academia being antiwar or antimilitary, i remember when i started doing the topics of veterans, gettering peculiar stares from people, why would you do that . But that has changed dramatically. Your followup question is, what should we do to change that . I think that change is underway as we speak. I would echo steve, sam houston state has a veterans population, at graduation we give stoles to veteran students to identify them as veterans. There is a veterans graduation ceremony. We do a lot to support our veterans. My colleagues as well support military history, our graduate program in history, so we are doing a lot of positive things that sam houston state. In academia as a whole, im now coeditor and a book series with the university of massachusetts press, which brings together work from across academic disciplines on veterans issues, so there is a real sense that veterans studies is becoming a discipline and the changes underway. Thank you for coming. My question is for dr. Warren, about the American Revolution. You mentioned the government wrote ious to the continental soldiers and then the soldiers sold them. My question is about afterwards, when speculators who bought these bonds, and hamilton wanted them to be honored as contracts, and madison and his supporters wanted the government to help these veterans who sold them for pennies on the dollar. How was the tension resolved . It was resolved in favor of the speculators. When the Continental Army disbanded, almost everyone was paid with continental debt certificates. And almost all those men were penniless, so had a most no choice but to negotiate them immediately with someone who would pay them in cash, so almost all those debt certificates wound up in the hands of speculators, and within a decade the soldiers would be referred to as their original holders. When the hamilton funding system establish the Economic System of the new federal government being debated in congress in 1789, 1790, 1791, a recurring theme is, dont we need to do justice to the original holders, to soldiers . But in some cases, civilians for whom similar debt certificates were issued when their cattle or produce were taken from them. There was a practical problem. Washington considered this, discussed it with his cabinet, that there was almost no credible records at that point of how those debt certificates had been issued. Most had been issued in great haste, and a lot of the records were held at the state level if they existed at all. And actually tracking down those original holders would have been extremely difficult. Hamilton had been a serious advocate of veterans rights in congress in the 1780s and said, if we do not pay off people who have invested in what are, in fact, very questionable securities of the United States, if we dont pay them off, we will destroy the credit of the United States. And this was not an easy argument for hamilton to make. He felt he was paid by the dispossessing of ordinary soldiers of their pay, but he couldnt see any other way to establish the credit of the United States. And it was done, im not making any excuse, it was done on the back of soldiers who had secured american independence. And they wound up fighting for the remainder of their lives, and the debate about doing justice to the original holders fueled the pension debates of the eight team 20s and leading up to the pension law of 1832, the first universal Service Pension law, it was that, look, we didnt pay these people properly when they were young men. At least those who have survived and now in their 60s and 70s, certainly we can pay them now, when the government has plenty of money. In 1832, the income of the u. S. Was four times the national budget. Can you imagine such a thing, only needing to spend one fourth of the money the government takes in, and revenue . So at that moment the u. S. Was extraordinarily flush, and so did this when at the time it was regarded as a remarkable thing, but only for that small number of men who survived. As many as 250,000 americans served in arms during the revolutionary war, which pales beside those of later wars, but so did our population, that was in a normas percentage of american men. Something like 35,000 men lived to claim pensions under the law of 1832, and those were the only ones to whom that kind of justice was ever done, and even then belatedly. Good evening. I have been a naval officer for 10 years, but spent 15 years collecting oral interviews of world war ii veterans. Ive noticed an interesting paradox as i have talked to both my peers in service and those who served 70 years ago, and that is that there is a cohort we are familiar with, who were traumatized and suffered with the horrors of things they witnessed, but also a cohort on the opposite end of the spectrum, who suffer with anguish because they were unable to serve in a sphere of the war that directly impacted victory, or what we conceive of as victory. Throughout history, have we treated combat veterans differently from noncombat veterans . Veterans . And now with an all volunteer force, do we continued to draw that distinction, and is that the healthy answer for those volunteering to serve . As far as the distinction between combat and noncombat veterans, some of that comes down to the work that was done. There was a discussion over whether Industrial Workers would have access to the g. I. Bill and it was decided no. But that was one of those moments where there were military officers there supervising it and their daily conditions were about the same as the war workers, and one group got the benefits and one group didnt. Coming into it now, i also have met some of these individuals who feel somehow their service didnt justify access to the benefits. I see this a lot particularly with female veterans, where their concept of what they were allowed to do in their service, they feel doesnt equate to what somebody who had a more combatfocused profession did. So even when they are struggling, they are not going to the v. A. Are veterans organizations to ask for help. I have encountered this issue quite a bit, particularly in the 20s after the American Legion was founded. The American Legion was specific, you had to be a member of the military in world war i, but not necessarily a soldier in combat in france. Half the vfw members were called what were called stayathome soldiers. So there was intraveteran conflict over how to advocate for policies that were expensive, when you knew that roughly two and a half of the 4. 5 million had not seen combat. That is why there was a larger federal effort to address serviceconnected disabilities and really focus on that, and not on larger veterans policies. So yes, it can be a rather contested who is a real veteran and who is a true veteran can be contested. I have not found the same level of anguish that you have for those who were not on the front lines, or what they deem to be frontline service. I think there is a way to conceptualize military service of any sort, recognizing that you are part of a large machinery where all is necessary, and i would argue that there are fewer people actually in combat compared to the number of people in positions, that it is awfully hard to tell these other 90 of the people, your service doesnt matter. I have not personally found that level of anguish. What that might be is the success of american propaganda during world war ii, we are all doing our part no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, that has alleviated some of that. But those differences amongst veterans were real, and had a real impact on the g. I. Bill for Vietnam Veterans, because they tried to think of a g. I. Bill that would just prioritize the Vietnam Combat soldiers and marines, and everyone said, wait a minute, we have military personnel stationed all around the globe, how are we going to give them more than the guys serving in west germany . In order to pay for it for all veterans of the vietnam war era, the better the relative benefits were far less significant than the benefits for world war ii veterans. But this debate over who is really serving, those were pronounced even in the vietnam era. We see this manifested over the debate over whether there should be a specific class of pensioners after the civil war. The grand army of the republic, the great pension lobby, many posts will Petition Congress to oppose a specific pow, prisoner of war pension, because they believe they are somehow less of a veteran than a combat veteran. Many pows, x pows, folks who survived in places like andersonville, are making appeals for pensions on what they call mental aberration or exposure, and it is more difficult to document but it is interesting to see these notorious pension lobbyists actually coming out and opposing that specific legislation, which i think is an index of the situation for civil war soldiers. Somewhat tangential to the other gentleman who just asked a question, my father and his brothers served in combat in world war ii. We went in the early 1970s to an all volunteer army, in which i served as a noncombatant. We have had a volunteer army since the early 1970s. We havent declared war, i believe, since 1941, and we have relatively interminable conflicts with, to some, dubious reasons. Do you think these things have affected the perception of the military and the military career amongst the majority of people now, who do not have a relative or a friend in uniform . If anything, when they do surveys of which Government Agencies americans like, the military always comes up as most trusted, most professional. And of lot and a lot of how that happened is through professionalism. Although we havent had a declared war, people have felt protected by the military, and military personnel in general are getting good training, good education. i they come back to their communities with some form of citizenship that is recognized and valued by their communities. Right now we are seeing a bit of a pedestal effect on military service, as far as problems to have, i think we will take that over our veterans being ignored, but that can cause a bridge of misunderstanding where we dont always think of a servicemember being one of us in our community, they are somehow other and set apart. The g. I. Bill of 1944 is one of the most important pieces of legislation to impact 20thcentury United States. The creation of the all volunteer force is one of the most impactful things in the history of this country, in ways it has redefined citizenship, redefined what the countrys commitment to service and war can mean. In the early years, you mentioned how high of esteemed the military is held, that is from the nadir of the 1970s when the all volunteer force pulled those numbers up high over time. But for all of us it is something to think about very seriously, to be fighting in wars done by all volunteers in our name, so even the house of representatives does not declare war, the people dont to claire were, so i find as a historian, i will continue to go back to 1973 moment as something that was a tectonic shift in American Public life, american cultural life, and that we will continue to bear that wait for some time. That is the last word. [applause]