CBS: How The GI Bill Changed America (landmark bill signed into law 64 years ago today)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/22/sunday/main4200692.shtml

(CBS) PL 346 was the Congressional designation of a landmark bill signed into law 64 years ago today - legislation designed to smooth the transition to civilian life for millions of World War II servicemen. In the process it changed America for ALL of us. Congress is very close to approving expanded benefits for service men and women of today's Iraq War era. Our Cover Story is reported now by Thalia Assuras.
They returned to a hero's welcome - sixteen million men and women who had served their country during World War II, one out of every nine Americans.

Yet, along with all the smiles and the tears of joy, there were fresh worries: Would returning vets be able to find jobs? A place to live? What was next?

"There was a near certainty that after the war - assuming the allies were victorious - that a depression would follow, just as happened after World War I - that the economy would tank," said author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ed Humes.

In his book "Over Here," Humes tracks the fate of those returning GIs.

"You had an economy that had been totally retooled to manufacture arms," he said of wartime America. "You had women entering the workforce in record numbers to take the jobs that the men had to leave to go fight. And so suddenly saying, 'Okay, back to normal,' it was gonna hit us like an explosion."

But it didn't.

In a display of foresight not often seen in Washington, long before victory was assured, President Franklin Roosevelt put into motion a plan to ease vets back into the fragile economy.


FULL story at link.