you're flying the colors of the american g.i. anization instrumental in getting latino veterans their rights and the services that are due to them. >> yes, yes, absolutely. many of those kids, i know i call them kids, many of those men are high school buddies that never came home, and we just, you know, it's just on and on, we just have so many fine points to justify the fact that it's long overdue. we want this monument, and it's going to fly, and the flag's there. we, of course, the american flag, the pow flag, the city and state flag, we couldn't be honored more than that, and, of course, the hats, we wear many hats, many colored hats. i'm committed to the american g.i. forum, have been for a long time. my father was an american g.i. forum member in the '60s when it was first coming to town here. the history behind it, the civil rights issue behind it many, many years ago is just one of those organizations that you -- it's great. it's a great organization nationally and locally. i can't say enough about the members as well as w

the great world war ii g.i. bill. it's a tremendous program, and we are very grateful to the american people and to congress for passing this great program. actually, it was put together and established by four veterans who led the charge, four senators. senator jim webb, senator chuck hagel, senators lautenberg and senator john warner, retired senator john warner from virginia. so we had two vietnam veterans, we had two world war ii veterans, two democrats, two republicans who led the charge, and many of us in the military and the veterans community helped to put this g.i. bill across the line. host: and so, what you're talking about right now is what's known as the post-9/11 g.i. bill, is that correct? guest: that's correct. host: that was passed in 2009, up to 100% tuition and fees coverage, monthly living and household stipend, up to $1,000 a year for books and supplies, one-time reallocation allowance, and options to transfer benefits to family members. this is information we got from military.com. how does a soldier qualify for this? how long do you have to be in service to get the full amount that we just descri

the most american stories there is. she was liberated from the camps by a man, a g.i., who is the man she would later end up marry, and she would emigrate to the united states because of this. and she ended up living a life that, as she says, she didn't cure cancer, she didn't win any major prizes, she didn't make a giant fortune. what she did, simply, was to live a life in freedom and to live a life where she understood that freedom not only to be a writ of permission to do whatever she wanted, but actually a bill of responsibility that she was taking on. and, indeed, quite well into her life she wrote a very famous memoir of her life called "all but my life," but later in her life she created an organization called citizenship counts. and it's a simple organization that hosts naturalization ceremonies all around the country and then gets conversations going with people who maybe haven't thought about this topic in a long time and uses that moment as an occasion to prompt reflection and conversation about what it means to be american, what it means to call ourselves american. i tell you the story about gerta weissman kli

the globe and all of those g.i.'s came home and for the first time we had a major part of american youth under the g.i.bill going into college? and what did that do? america was at the pinnacle of our power and influence in the world and then with that generation of young people getting educated like they never had before, all of a sudden we had an expanding middle class as we went into the 1950's and the 1960's. you'll also remember that was a time of attention to high technology because we suddenly found ourselves behind the soviets in the space race with sputnik and then gargarian going up. and all the more kids went into math and science and technology, and look what that spawned in the generations to come because of education. and a lot of that came directly out of the g.i. bill. and now are we to adopt policies that are going to reverse that trend? well, we tried to take care of it in a diminishing economy as we slipped into the recession back in 2007 by saying, it is a matter of policy that we should lower interest rates for students who want to get their education. and here we are. and what thi

the g.i. bill. my grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line was part of the pork force that turned out the best products on earth. they contributed to a story of success that every american had a chance to share. the basic american promise that if you worked hard you would do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement. keeping that promise alive is the defining issue of our time. but it means making responsible choices. i don't think we should prioritize things like more tax cuts for millionaires while cutting the investments that built a strong-month old class. that's why i called on congress to take the money we're no longer spending on war, use half of it to pay down our debt and use the other half to rebuild america. we've got more jobs to create, nomore students to educate, more energy to generate, more entrepreneurs looking for their shot at success. we got to invest in things like education, research, we need to build newer, faster communication networks, and for veterans so we serve them as well as they served us. every time i have the privilege of meeting with our troops i'm struck by their courage,

the greatest generation ever seen in american history. eight million people who served in the army out of 16 million got college educations through the g.i. bill, and thus this generation, it came up that started us on a track for prosperity that this country had never seen. the investment that the g.i. bill made in people sets when you have a chance to educate people, to get them to go to college, to get them to attend the university is the way we create the next great generation , but attending college has never been this expensive. the cost of tuition at public universities is higher by 37% more than just ten years ago. think about that. the college ten years ago cost $40,000. it now costs over -- well over $50,000. and as a result, more and more students are taking on massive loans that will plague them for years. i use the word plague because it's very difficult to get started in life and business and family and be facing heavy debt at the same time. 66% of new jersey students graduate with loan indebtedness. the average loan burden for new jersey graduates is more than $23,000. so no wonder we hear that technology companies are hung

african-americans, some of our best and brightest students who l grant, because their parents -- veterans -- a whole generation of white men went back to college under the g.ibill, and we were proud to be able to do that. when blacks want an opportunity, we want to call that socialism or welfare. that is a double standard of being self sufficient to which black americans are being held. certainly black people want to be entrepreneurs. what happens when the bid for contracts on the city level, to do electrical work and they are constantly outmaneuvered or outbid by white contractors? there is some element of old boys club. we do not have to call it racism. there is an element that the old boys are in their. i want you to appreciate the struggle that african-americans had. i do think it is importance for african americans to make themselves present in both parties. i would hope that when african americans are republicans that they would hold their feet to the fire. host: your relationship with representative allen west? guest: all cbc members are not the same. we are diverse. we welcome alan west into the congressional black caucus. we have a candidate from u

nania and rebecca and cody did, but we all remember if we pay attention to american history, in the 1940's and 1950's, the g.i. bill gave literally millions of young american men and women returning from serving their country the opportunity to go to school, and what the g.i. bill did was help millions of individual americans one at a time, but what that did collectively is it raised all boats, it created a huge amount of prosperity for our country because all these people went to college. a lot of these people bought homes. the colleges were growing and expanding, creating more jobs. these people started businesses. these people were productive workers. these people invented things because they had the education to go to college. with these stafford loans, it's not just helping cody and rebecca and rebecca's students today and nania, it's also helping all of us as society, whether you go to college or not. some people don't want to go to college. fine. we have career centers and trade schools and community colleges to learn welding, to learn carpentry, to learn how to be a health care worker, whatever people