Making it in the MilLife

Here’s a statistic to scare you: Kids can fall up to one academic year behind over their summer breaks. Ouch! The Department of Defense has a department wide reading program this year to help keep kids on the ball. The program is called “Voyage to Book Island”.  Check out the story here and see if your installation has one.

Our family usually participates in the library’s summer reading program  (amazing how the promise of a coupon book that includes free ice cream motivates kids) but this year I thought I would up the ante.

My boys are six and 11 and they’ll read (or be read to) but they tend to lean towards Sponge Bob over Sounder if you know what I mean. With my older son headed off to middle school and the pressures of honors classes ahead, I want him to challenge himself as a reader a little more. So, I said if he would pick a book from the school’s suggested reading list for 7^th graders and host a book club each month during the summer with his buddies, I would throw them a slumber party with pizza, video games and a late night. I think he only heard “slumber party” but he agreed and got four friends on board. With books like “Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler’s Shadow”, “Jane Eyre” and “An Inconvenient Truth” on their rising 7^th and 8^th grader reading list, I think my plan to move him into more challenging books will work.

I read the Little House on the Prairie series and The Chronicles of Narnia more times than I recall. What was your favorite childhood read?

Today, 16 years ago, President Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 into law. Known as the GI Bill of Rights, it came with a fight. One congressman, John Gibson of Georgia, cast the tie breaking vote.

 Three years later in 1947, veterans made up 49 percent of college admissions. By 1956 nearly half of the 16 million World War II veterans had received some sort of education or vocational training with the help of the GI Bill. In 1984 the bill was revamped and became known as the Montgomery GI Bill after former Mississippi Congressman Gillespie V. “Sonny” Montgomery, who led the effort.

The Post 9/11 GI Bill continues the legacy by adding transferability and unprecedented financial support. On June 29 tune in to a MOAA livestream of the webinar: 5 Simple Secrets to Maximize Your Post-9/11 GI Bill Benefits at  moaa.org/livestream to see what you can do with this incredible benefit.