MUST READS

1) $3,000 Advances to Bridge GI Bill Backlog

In response to widespread concern over the mounting backlog of Post 9/11 GI Bill claims, the Department of Veteran Affairs has taken action to help veterans who are struggling to make ends meet while they are waiting for their GI Bill checks to arrive. Now, starting Oct. 2, veterans can request a $3,000 advance on their housing and book allowances by bringing a photo ID, course schedule and eligibility certificate to one of the agency's 57 regional offices, including in the District and Baltimore. The agency said it would also send officials to some college campuses and help coordinate transportation to regional offices. "Students should be focusing on their studies, not worrying about financial difficulties," Secretary of Veterans AffairsEric K. Shinseki said in a statement. The agency has been overwhelmed by a flood of applications. Of the 251,000 students who have submitted claims this year, 24,186 -- less than 10 percent -- have received checks, according to Veterans Affairs officials.

2) 60 Minutes: McChrystal’s Frank Talk on Afghanistan

General Stanley McChrystal, top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told CBS' 60 Minutes on Sunday that the U.S. needs to "deprogram" bad habits and change how the war is being fought. "We could do good things in Afghanistan for the next 100 years and fail. Because we're doing a lot of good things and it just doesn't add up to success," McChrystal said. "The secretary talks in terms of 12 to 18 months to show a significant change and then we eat up two or three months just on sort of getting the tools out of the tool box. That really hurts." Asked how often he talks to President Obama about the situation, McChrystal said he has talked to him only once in 70 days since taking over from his predecessor this past spring. Click here to watch McChrystal take 60 Minutes behind the scenes of central command in Afghanistan.

3) Wartime Soldier, Conflicted Mom

A range of challenges face mothers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 100,000 female soldiers who have served in the wars are mothers, nearly half the number of women who have been deployed. While the military has adapted to women living, serving and fighting alongside men, helping mothers poses a different set of challenges. Two of the biggest issues that confront married and single enlisted mothers are long periods of time away and the transition back to domestic life. Last year the army extended the time that a new mother can defer deployment from four to six months. According to the article, some solutions to further assist enlisted mothers is for the military to provide around-the-clock child care and to start offering assurances that couples will not be deployed simultaneously.

A gala event the other night convinced me that there is enough genuine good in the world to give us all hope.

The black-tie dinner at New York’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel honored the 90th anniversary of the Institute for International Education (IIE). The organization runs the Fulbright Fellowships, which fund research and study programs around the world. A few years ago, a small group of trustees expanded the mission of the IIE, launching the Scholar Rescue Fund. In America, discussions of “academic freedom” are lofty and theoretical. Around the world, they often involve pistols and prisons.

Related: The World's Worst Dictators

Instead of flowers, the centerpieces at the dinner were bright red globes. Placecards described programs for social justice, international understanding, and scholar freedom.

I sat across from Prince Talal of Jordan, a debonair and brilliant man who believes that his country, however small and arid, can be a source of stability in the Middle East. He and his wife, Princess Ghida Talal, have been working with the Scholar Rescue Fund to give refuge to persecuted Iraqi academics. They have welcomed 170 scholars to their country, most of whom would not have otherwise survived.

Why open one country to academics who have been driven out of another?

In oppressive regimes, scholars are often the first targeted. Tyrants want to kill new ideas and destroy open thinking. They want scholars gone. Dead, preferably.

An Iraqi gentleman at our table, Donny George, had lived through that experience. He once oversaw the glorious art museum in Baghdad. When America invaded and the looting began, he bricked up the museum, hoping to preserve the treasures still inside.

Related: 'They Can Kill Me, But They Can't Kill My Ideas'

The courageous effort brought him nothing but death threats. He had the wrong religion and the wrong political beliefs. The Scholar Rescue Fund pulled him from then dangerous, war-torn Iraq. He is now teaching at a university in New York, his whole family getting accustomed to living in suburban America.

At the gala, he sat next to Prince Talal—two valiant men bound by circumstances and bravery.

One of the trustees who helped fund the rescues, Dr. Henry Jarecki, hosted our table. He looked around at a few other scholars in the room, rescued from Ethiopia, Iran, and Uzbekistan.

All are now doing important work in this country.

All are alive because of him.

"We are taking knowledgeable, courageous people and restoring them to dignity and productivity," says Dr. Jarecki. "The program has great resonance because it is about hope and the future of education."

The goal of the program is to give scholars safe haven until their countries stabilize and they can return. Seventy percent have indeed gone back. So far, none of the Iraqis can return.

Prince Talal and Donny George presented Dr. Jarecki with gold cufflinks inscribed with the Arabic words for “compassion” and “tenderness.”

Dr. Jarecki is a successful man, who already has more gold than he could spend in many lifetimes. But it is the compassion and tenderness that make him rich.

And those qualities make our entire country richer.