Benefits for Korean Veterans

Report Outline
Basic Questions in Extending Benefits
Education and Training Programs for Veterans
Veteran Loans and Unemployment Protection

Basic Questions in Extending Benefits

Undetermined Duration of New Benefit Programs

Congress seems certain at its 1952 session to enact legislation which will extend to men now in active service with the armed forces the principal benefits made available to veterans of World War II by the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944—the “G.I. Bill of Rights”. About 20,000 men are now being returned to civil life each month, and total discharges from the armed forces are expected to exceed 200,000 by the time schools and colleges open in the autumn. The budget submitted by President Truman on Jan. 21 carried an estimate of $75 million to provide readjustment benefits for veterans who have seen active service since hostilities began in Korea in mid-1950. The House Committee on Veterans' Affairs is now holding hearings on a score of bills to authorize such benefits.

The new program of readjustment benefits is expected to differ in important respects from the World War II program. Its provisions would be designed to meet the needs of all enlistees and men drafted under the current Selective Service Act, which makes every qualified male liable to military service until mid-1955. Congress will undoubtedly be asked to extend the draft act if there has been no relaxation of present international tensions before its expiration. Hence any veterans' program now adopted will affect hundreds of thousands of young men for years to come and must be viewed as long-lasting, in contrast to the post-World War II program now drawing to a close.

The President said in his January budget message: “The new legislation should take account of the significant imperfections which have become apparent in our experience with the ‘G.I. Bill.’ All possible effort should be made to incorporate into any new program the lessons learned from that experience,” Some of these imperfections and lessons to be drawn from them have been brought out this month by a select committee of the House which investigated educational, training, and loan guaranty programs under the G.I. Bill. Recommendations for avoiding some of the faults of the World War II program are embodied in a bill introduced Feb. 5, 1952, by Rep. Teague (D., Tex,), chairman of the select committee which investigated that program.