Guam Veterans Bonuses for Second World War Service

Chapter 68 of Title 10 carries four bonus articles. One is closed and three are not, and the difference is worth stating precisely because a family may still have a claim. Article 1, the general veterans bonus at §§ 68100 to 68102, paid $30 for each month of active service in World War II, the Korean War or the Indo-China Conflict, with a $1 per day fraction and a maximum of $720, to a person who was a resident of Guam on entering service and was separated under conditions other than dishonorable. If the veteran was killed in action the amount payable to beneficiaries was the full $720. It excluded anyone who received a like bonus from another state or territory. Section 68101 closed it: "All application for bonuses authorized by this Article must be made to the Office of Veterans Affairs on or before December 31, 1986." That deadline has passed and this article is spent. Articles 2, 3 and 4 are different. Each authorizes a bonus of $2,500, each is payable to the person "or his survivor or survivors," and none of them contains an application deadline. Article 2, § 68200, is for veterans of the Guam Combat Patrol, "which has received inadequate recognition from the United States Government, and little prior recognition from the government of Guam." Eligibility is governed by a list the Director of Public Safety prepares; application is to the Director, who certifies eligibility to the Treasurer of Guam, who pays. Article 3, § 68300, is for the Wake Island Workers, the Guamanian civilians employed on Wake Island, on the same terms. The Governor prepares the list and certifies to the Treasurer. Article 4, § 68400, is for local residents who served as civilian scouts for the U.S. Armed Forces during the liberation of Guam in the Second World War, "who have never received adequate recognition from either the United States or the territory of Guam." Section 68401 sets a beneficiary order where the scout is no longer living: the living spouse, unless at the time of death the couple were separated by consent or the spouse had deserted; then the living children share and share alike; then the living mother; then the living father. Article 1 uses the same order and adds the veteran's estate as a final taker. Sections 68402 and 68403 bar payment to anyone assisting applicants and make members of the Legislature and others ineligible. Two cautions this catalog will not paper over. The chapter's compiler stamp is from 2006, which is much older than the rest of Guam's veterans law and suggests it has not been revisited in a long time. And a bonus statute with no deadline still needs an appropriation and an administering official willing to process it. Whether the Treasurer of Guam will pay one of these today is a question for the Office of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Administration, and the answer should be obtained in writing. The point of recording it is that nothing in the code repeals these articles, the claim descends to survivors, and no summary of Guam veterans benefits mentions them.