Troy veteran upset after GI Bill not offered

This is what happens when one generation of veterans is treated differently from all veterans.

Troy veteran upset after GI Bill not offered
Oakland Press
Published: Monday, February 18, 2013
By JERRY WOLFFE

A retired Army veteran says he and thousands of others in the military in the late 1950s and early ’60s were cheated out of veterans benefits.

Cicero Acton, now 73 and a retired veteran who spent his career as a Troy history teacher and coach, said communication with veterans was lacking.

During the administration of Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, the GI Bill was terminated.

The 1959 repeal provided that persons entering the military after Jan. 31, 1955, would not be entitled to any benefits at all, and those in the service prior to that date who had not signed up for its benefits by July 25, 1956, would receive nothing.

The U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs failed to inform them the GI Bill was reinstated in 1966 by President Lyndon Baines Johnson and made retroactive to those who served in the military from 1955.

“Those of us that graduated in the late 1950s (and were in the Armed Services) didn’t get the GI Bill,” Acton said.

“I am really bitter about it, not so much for myself but for others who could not afford to go to college. But I’m not the story, the story is the military didn’t inform those like me that they were entitled to educational benefits,” he said.

Veterans officials in Oakland County said Acton was mistaken about the GI Bill. The benefits were reinstated on March 3, 1966, by Johnson.
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