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Show Dan Daniel Urges End To j Vet Discrimination "As long as our country can I afford to spend billions of dollars dol-lars on foreign aid and on building build-ing medical facilities in foreign countries we can afford adequate ade-quate care for men and women who fought our country's wars." So asserted Natonal Commander Dan Daniel of The American Legion in Hotel Statler in Washington, Wash-ington, D. C. Feb. 28. "I ask you," Commander Daniel Dan-iel said, "which program has been better for America - a gigantic give - away to nations whose friendship can't be bought whose neutrality is heavily weighted in favor of communism, commun-ism, or which is openly communistic commun-istic - or, on the other hand, a program which daily has provided provid-ed an average of more than 100,-000 100,-000 veterans needed hospital and medical care and which has enabled en-abled more than 9,000,000 World War II and Korean veterans to obtain education and training under the GI Bill, thereby making mak-ing them more useful, intelligent citizens with increased earning capacity?" Referring to disability compensation com-pensation benefits, Daniel said that The American Legion is grateful to Rep. Olin E. Teague (D-Texas,)chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, and to the members of that committee commit-tee for their prompt action approving ap-proving H.R. 52 to increase the monthly awards in disability compensation and to increase dependency de-pendency allowances to disabled veterans and their amilies. Another of the Legion's principal prin-cipal objectives in the current session of Congress, according to Daniel, will be to end the present pres-ent inequality between widows and orphans of deceased World War II and Korean War veterans and the widows and orphans of World War I veterans. "Entitled to this necessary benefit should be the same for all survivors, and all should be given a cost-of-living increase." he stated. The American Legion head asserted that there can be no justificaion far penalizing a disabled dis-abled veteran by denying him benefits under other government programs, such as the recently amended Social Security program pro-gram P.L. 880, because he receives re-ceives compensation for a service-connected disability. "It is the Legion's purpose to end this injustice," he said. With regard to veteran's preference, pre-ference, Daniel said, "These laws give us the highest type of federal fed-eral employee, for the man who served his country in time of war and was then recognized as the flower o'f our citizenship is no less qualified to serve his government as a civilian employee em-ployee in time of peace." |