Statement Announcing a Program To Inform Disadvantaged Vietnam-Era Veterans of Educational and Job Training Benefits

AS OUR American troops return from Vietnam in increasing numbers, one of the most crucial questions facing the Nation is what they return to.

We owe these men a debt of gratitude for their service---but we also owe them something more. We owe them an extra measure of help in making the difficult transition back to civilian life.

The he!p available under existing Federal programs has been substantially increased during the past 2 years, but the dismaying fact is that unemployment among Vietnam-era veterans still is significantly greater than it is among nonveterans in the same age bracket. This poses a challenge to government at all levels--Federal, State, and local--to business, to the educational community, and to all of us as citizens.

One key factor in this problem is that many returning veterans who could profit most from the benefits available--and particularly the disadvantaged--are not making full use of them.

As part of the Administration's continuing effort to improve services to returning veterans and to encourage fuller use of them by those eligible, a new program is being launched today to acquaint disadvantaged veterans with the educational and job training benefits available and to encourage them to participate. I welcome the public-spirited cooperation of the many groups and individuals that are making this imaginative new venture possible and urge all concerned to help make it a success.

This is the latest in a series of moves that have been made to provide more help to veterans. For example:

--The GI bill allowance for education has been increased by 35 percent.

--Veterans have been permitted to draw these benefits concurrently with other Federal benefits.

--I have proposed new legislation to reduce the financial hardship borne in the early months of school enrollment by making advance payments of GI bill benefits.

In October 1970, I created the Jobs for Veterans Program under Mr. James F. Oates, Jr. This group has sought the active help and cooperation of employers, labor unions, voluntary organizations, and State and local governments in opening job and training opportunities to returning veterans.

As a result of these and other Administration efforts, we can point with pride to greatly increased participation in GI bill benefits. More than 1 million veterans are now receiving benefits. This is an increase of 36 percent over last year, 70 percent over the level 2 years ago, and 240 percent over 1966. By the end of 1972, we expect to be providing these benefits to 1.8 million people.

We have also provided substantial improvements in other important benefits for veterans, including:

--a 10 percent average increase in compensation for death or disablement from military service;

--a 10 percent average increase in pension benefits for needy veterans (or their survivors and dependents) of wartime service;

--higher quality medical care by providing staffing increases of almost 4,000--raising the staff-to-patient ratio from 1.51:1 to 1.8:1 for general medical patients, and higher for surgical patients--and adding some 170 specialized medical units in such areas as spinal cord injury treatment, rehabilitation of the blind, drug abuse clinics, and many others.

The venture being announced today-involving the Office of Economic Opportunity and the Nation's communities together in a joint effort to reach out to the veteran and help him obtain needed training benefits--is but one of a number of new measures being developed by the Administration to assist the returning veterans.

As a nation, we bear a profound and very special responsibility to those who have been called upon to serve. All of us share in that obligation--and each veteran, by his service, has earned assistance in assuming his rightful place in the civilian community. The Federal Government must do it:, full share in meeting that obligation, and I also urge all others who can help to do so.