GI Bill

Audience

Congress wrote the GI Bill for the American people. As the law of the land, it applied to all Americans and, in particular, to the veterans who met the eligibility requirements for the benefits it made available. But very few ordinary citizens read the legislation. The lawmakers did not use simple language that most people could easily understand or inspiring words that could convey the lofty goals they hoped to achieve. Instead, they used legal, technical, and—on occasion—complicated terminology so that government departments that carried out the law or courts that decided disputes about the law's provisions would understand precisely what the law allowed. The main audiences, then, were the public officials in the Veterans Administration, the state employment services, or other federal or state agencies that had to provide the benefits that the law specified. Most Americans who were interested in the GI Bill probably read summaries of its main provisions in newspapers or magazines, in newsletters from veterans organizations such as the American Legion, or in brochures and pamphlets from the Veterans Administration.