"Over Here": Personal, powerful evidence that the G.I. Bill changed us all

"Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream"
by Edward Humes
Harcourt, 319 pp., $26

The last time Edward Humes wrote about the U.S. military, the year was 1989. Then a newspaper reporter at the Orange County Register in Southern California, Humes showed the link between fatal military helicopter crashes and faulty night-vision devices known by the Pentagon to operate poorly despite their huge pricetag.

Now, Humes has written a very different book involving the U.S. military, one more historical in nature, and largely upbeat.

"Over Here" is about the post-World War II G.I. Bill, one of the most remarkable social engineering efforts in U.S. history. It opens with a typical veteran, Allan Howerton, trying to find his place in American society after fighting the Nazis. Howerton, who had been hustling fast-food hamburgers in Rahway, N.J., before being sent to Europe, feels the crush of veterans returning to the United States by the hundreds of thousands.

Rather than allow this crush to crush his spirit, Howerton decided to enroll in college to earn a degree while sorting out his employment options. As he exits a crowded, creaky trolley car in an unfamiliar city, he sees a sign confirming he has reached his destination. University of Denver, the sign reads. Howerton enrolls for freshman classes — and his life, like the lives of millions of other veterans, is changed forever.

The G.I. Bill that helped World War II veterans readjust to civilian life after 1945 is one of the rare laws "everybody knows about." But Humes' expansive account of how the G.I. Bill changed American society in expected and unexpected ways demonstrates that what "everybody knows" is not even the half of it.

Officially called the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, the law allowed millions of men and women to buy homes that would have been beyond their means; attend colleges by paying tuitions they could never have afforded; and receive increasingly expensive, sophisticated health care.

Instead of focusing on Congress, the White House, the Pentagon and the courts, Humes moves away from the institutional saga to emphasize how the G.I. Bill altered the lives of specific individuals — like Howerton at the University of Denver.

The human dramas scattered throughout the narrative are irresistible. Humes' handful of real-life protagonists invent sophisticated weapons for use in the Cold War, populate suburbs in tract homes that alter the urban-rural equation, become beloved physicians and teachers and film directors — all because the G.I. Bill provided otherwise unimaginable opportunities.

Humes leavens the upbeat chapters with a case study of a female veteran who faces obstacles receiving the benefits legally due to her, and a black veteran who must overcome even greater obstacles placed there by power brokers who failed to learn the lesson that all are equal on the battlefield. Veterans returning from the Civil War, World War I, Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf did not fare as well across the board; the historical context provided by Humes makes the success of the G.I. Bill all the more poignant on this Veteran's Day week.

What about Howerton at the University of Denver? As Humes notes, Howerton's college experience "was as much about healing as it was about learning, as much about getting over being a G.I. as it was about using the G.I. Bill."

Of the 200 men in Howerton's combat division, 42 died under fire. "When he came home and found his way to Denver, he considered himself blessed, hale and hearty. In truth, he would later realize, he was 'torn up inside.' It took time for that to change."

Howerton became involved in political campaigns while earning a bachelor's degree in international relations. He then worked for United Airlines; earned a master's degree; found a job in Washington, D.C., with a federal bureaucracy; married; and fathered three children.

Some authors overstate the importance of their topics, but Humes provides ample evidence for statements such as this: "If the bill's transformation of college in America from an elite bastion to a virtual entitlement proved revolutionary, its home-loan provisions were nothing short of radical."

The book will provide nostalgia for the World War II generation, and a well-rounded education for readers born later.