Excerpt:
To the Congress:
On November 13, 1942, on signing the bill calling for the induction by Selective Service of young men eighteen and nineteen years old, I appointed a committee of educators, under the auspices of the War and Navy Departments, to study the problem of education of our service men and women after the war. The objective was to enable those young people, whose education had been interrupted, to resume their schooling, and to provide an opportunity for the education and technical training of other young men and women of ability, after their discharge from the armed services.
This committee has sent me a preliminary report which I am herewith transmitting to the Congress for its consideration, and, I hope, for its early action.
We, at home, owe a special and continuing obligation to these men and women in the armed services.
During the war we have seen to it that they have received the best training and equipment, the best food, shelter, and medical attention, the best protection and care which planning, ingenuity, physical resources, and money could furnish in time of war. But after the war shall have been won, the best way that we can repay a portion of that debt is to see to it, by planning and by action now, that those men and women are demobilized into an economy which is sound and prosperous, with a minimum of unemployment and dislocation; and that, with the assistance of Government, they are given the opportunity to find a job for which they are fitted and trained, in a field which offers some reasonable assurance of well-being and continuous employment.
Source Citation:
Message to Congress on the Education of War Veterans. 118 Pub. Papers. October 27, 1943. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/message-congress-the-education-war-veterans