Who Counts as a Veteran in North Dakota

North Dakota has one core definition and several deliberate widenings, and the interesting parts are a carve-out most people miss and a section that gives the title while withholding everything attached to it. The core, at 37-01-40(1). A veteran is an individual who served on continuous federalized active uniformed services duty for one hundred eighty days or the full period for which they were called or ordered to active duty for reasons other than training, and who was discharged or released under other than dishonorable conditions. Then the sentence that follows it: "A discharge reflecting 'expiration of term of service' or 'completion of required service' or words to that effect qualifies the shorter term of service as making the individual a veteran." A tour shorter than 180 days that ended because the term of service ran out counts. That is a genuine carve-out from the 180-day rule and it is in almost no summary of North Dakota benefits. The words "uniformed services" are new. Senate Bill 2198 of the 2025 session, an emergency measure approved on April 17, 2025, replaced "federalized active military duty" with "federalized active uniformed services duty". The uniformed services are wider than the armed forces: they include the commissioned corps of the Public Health Service and of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Because 37-01-40 is the definition that the property tax credit, the dependent tuition waiver, resident tuition status, the employment preference and the veterans' home all reach back to, that one phrase widened every one of them at once. A separate definition of "wartime veteran" sits in subsection 2, for service during a period of armed conflict or with an expeditionary or campaign service medal during an emergency condition. Subsection 4 lists the current period-of-service dates: World War II from December 7, 1941 through December 31, 1946; Korea from June 27, 1950 through January 31, 1955; Vietnam from August 5, 1964 through May 7, 1975; the Gulf War from August 2, 1990 through January 2, 1992; and the period beginning September 11, 2001. Note that the Vietnam window starts in August 1964, which is later than the February 1961 date some federal programs use. Three chapters then widen the definition for their own purposes. Chapter 37-14, covering the veterans' aid loan and the hardship grants, counts anyone VA has assigned a service-connected disability rating whatever their length of service, plus current members of the national guard or reserve, plus former members discharged under other than dishonorable conditions. Chapter 37-19.1, the employment preference, counts a person serving in or honorably discharged from the national guard or a reserve unit, and defines a "disabled veteran" as anyone entitled to a VA service-connected rating at any percentage. Section 37-03-14, the cemetery, names national guard and other reserve component members directly, and that list is what gates the veterans' number plate. Finally, section 37-01-46, which is the most honest provision of its kind in this catalog and the most disappointing to read. An individual who performed service in the national guard, the armed forces reserve, or the active duty armed forces, received an honorable discharge, and is not otherwise included within the definition of a veteran under federal or state law, "is, at the completion of that individual's term of service, honored as a veteran, but is not entitled to any benefits or preferences available to veterans by reason of this section". North Dakota says out loud what other states leave ambiguous. A Guard member who served honorably and never federalized may call themselves a veteran, and the state means it. It just does not open any of the state benefit doors on its own. The doors that a Guard member can walk through are the ones listed above, where a chapter names them: the aid loan, the hardship grants, the hiring preference, the cemetery and the plate.