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Show ATTENTION Veterans The Veterans Readjustment Benefits Act of 1966, which was signed into law Thursday, March 3, by President Johnson, provides a permanent program of benefits to veterans who have served, or who will serve in the U. S. Armed Forces, since January 31, 1955, Chief among these benefits will be education, home loan guaranty and the extension of VA hospital benefits on the same priority basis as for wartime war-time veterans. Thus, approximately approxi-mately four million veterans discharged from the service since January 31, 1955, ranging from "cold war" veterans to those now on duty in Viet Nam, become eligible for benefits somewhat similar to those granted the veterans of World War II and the Korean Conflict. At the same time, provision has been made for 600, 000 additional veterans who will be returning to civilian life each calendar year to participate in the same benefits. In all cases, to be eligible the veteran must have a discharge that is other than dishonorable and he must not already have used up his eligibility under previous programs. pro-grams. All the new benefits, with the exception of the educational education-al assistance program, went into effect immediately upon the President's signing of the bill. The educational assistance assist-ance provisions will go into effect June 1, 1966. The benefits established by the new law are: Educational assistance, home and farm loans, medical care, 1 job counseling, job placement, federal employment preference and the issuance of burial flags. A brief summary of each follows. Education: Veterans with more than 180 days active duty, any part of which occurred on or after February 1, 1955, will be eligible for one month of college, vocational or similar education for each month or fraction of a month on active duty. Those taking full time courses will receive $100 per month if they have no dependents; depend-ents; $125 a month with one dependent, and $150 a month with more than one dependent. . Proportional rates will be paid for part-time courses. The income of the veteran will not be considered. Application blanks and full information will be available at VA offices and at colleges and educational centers sometime in April, well in advance of the June 1, 1966, starting date. The tnaximum period allowed allow-ed will be 36 months but this may be reduced by the amount of educational assistance previously pre-viously received under a VA educational program. Since the program starts by law on June 1, 1966, there can be no retroactive payments. There is no deadline date to enter upon the educational program and veterans will have eight years from the date of their last discharge from active service to complete their courses. However, the first cut-off date will not be until March 3, 1974. Loan Prdgram: Veterans with more than 180 days of active act-ive duty will be eligible for VA guaranteed home or farm loans or VA direct home loans in areas where such loans are authorized. They will have until ten years after the date of their last discharge from active service plus one year additional for each three month period of active service to make such a ban, with a maximum deadline date of twenty years after the date of discharge from the qualifying service. For those veterans who have already been out of the service for a period of years, a minimum mini-mum entitlement date has been set at ten years. VA guaranteed loans will be made at 5 12 per cent interest rate. This rate applies also to new loans guaranteed for World War II and Korean Conflict Con-flict veterans. A one-time non-recurring fee not to exceed one -half of one percent of the loan amount is payable by the veteran but may be included in the loan and collected by the lender. However, it must be remitted, to the VA before a guaranty certificate may be issued. In the direct loan program, the new law raises the maximum maxi-mum loan possible from $15, 000 to $17, 000. Veterans with unused and unexpired World War II or Korean Conflict entitlement en-titlement will have that previous pre-vious entitlement cancelled and will become eligible under the new law alone. However, during the period their cancelled can-celled entitlement would have been available, such veterans not only need not pay the statutory guaranty or direct loan fee under the new law, but they also may secure loans for business purposes as well as for home and farm purposes. NOTE: Both the educational assistance and loan guaranty provisions of the new law will apply to those persons who remain re-main in the service after two years of military duty. Medical Care: Veterans who have served after January 31, 1955, will be eligible for admission ad-mission to VA hospitals on the same basis as wartime veterans, the priorities are: First, veterans with service-connected service-connected disabilities have top priority for admission; Second, veterans with service -connected disabilities but who are seeking treatment for some other ailment ail-ment will be admitted as beds are available; Third, veterans without service-connected disabilities dis-abilities may be admitted to VA hospitals if (1) hospitalization hospitaliza-tion is deemed necessary, (2) they are financially unable to defray the cost of the hospitalization, hospitali-zation, and (3) beds are available. avail-able. Other benefits: The new law also makes provisions for job counseling and job placement, both of these under the auspices of the Veterans Employment Service of the U. S. .Department of Labor; and Civil Service preference in federal employment. employ-ment. A United States flag will be provided for use at the iuneral of veterans who have served after January 31, 1955, PERSONALS Mrs. Dorothy Price spent weekend before last visiting with her husband Larry in Colorado Springs. She returned on Monday and during spring vacation she motored to Logan, Utah to spend a day with some of her roommates she had while attending the University last year, Miss Lynette Brown of Talma ge accompanied her to Logan. |