A V C Pledges Fight on VA's Education Ruling

The Veterans Administration's storm-tossed ruling that vets' benefits can be applied only to training "essential to employment" will be fought to the last out by the University chapter of the American Veterans Committee, chairman Roy F. Gootenberg '49 1GPA announced last night after the chapter's first executive board meeting of the year.

The board voted yesterday afternoon to plan a campaign among veterans both at the University and on campuses throughout the country to get across to the VA the uncertainly that Instruction 1A has created in the student veteran community.

Registration Disrupted

Instruction 1A, dated September 1, released after September 15 by the VA, and now postponed until November 1, requires a letter of "complete justification" that he will get training "essential to his employment" from every veteran who seeks to change from one institution or course of study to another.

Between the release and the postponement last weekend, institutions and veterans councilors throughout the nation were in complete confusion about registration of veterans who had not yet "justified" their new courses and who might be deprived of educational benefits under the GI Bills of Rights, at least until the VA approved their "justifications."

Local Gang in Limelight

At the instigation of the University Chapter, AVC national chairman Gilbert Harrison has written to Harold B. Stirling, VA Rehabilitation Director, and to all student AVC chapters to urge acceptance of three points:

(1) Veterans councilors and registration procedures must be spared from the complete consternation which the handling of Instruction 1A caused.

What is "Essential?"

(2) The administrative definition of the phrase "essential to employment" must be precisely determined and published.

(3) Student veterans must know their future under the GI Bill--for how many months and in what institutions they can continue to receive benefits.

The letter states: "The VA is saying that because Congress has banned 'avocational and recreational' training, the VA has decided that Congress intended only to subsidize vocational training.

"This is an interpretation which is at least questionable . . . and which we are going to continue to fight."