The GI Bill

I finally got some of my financial aid information for this fall. Between my GI Bill and a Pell Grant, my tuition is completely covered. The GI Bill program is such a great thing, it's hard to quantify the benefit to our society. Both of my grandfathers got degrees through the GI Bill. One bachelors and one masters degree. I don't think I'd be the same person today without the influence of my grandfather. I've talked about this before. He established himself in the community through his work at the Ag Service Center. My mother's father, who died before I was born, has left an important legacy in this rural town as well. A long-time principal and superintendent at our school, it was strange for me to go to high school every day and walk past a portrait of my grandfather hanging on the wall. I was picking my kids up from school one day and I showed them granddad's name on a plaque that was installed when that part of the school was built.

I can't say that because I'm working on this degree, thanks to my service in the military, that I'll leave that kind of legacy. But the important thing to me is that the GI Bill allows anyone the possibility to do that. Don't misread me: I don't believe that a college degree can transform someone into something their not; the exercise in persistence it takes to finish a degree with a family and a job is what does the transforming.

I've never felt like I belong here, in this corporate office. I think I've always wanted to be a writer. Now that I'm pursuing it in an "official" capacity, I'm really starting to look forward to something. I have a goal to achieve for the first time in a long time. The degree is not the end for me, it's the road to it that's important.