South Carolina Veteran Designation on a Driver’s License

Section 56-1-140(B) lets an applicant for a new, renewed or replacement driver's licence apply for a veteran designation on the front of the licence. There is no fee: 2017 Act No. 6 eliminated the charge that used to attach to it. Three document routes, and they are not equivalent. The first is a DD Form 214 "that shows a characterization of service, or discharge status of 'honorable' or 'general under honorable conditions' and establishes the person's qualifying military service in the United States armed forces". A general discharge under honorable conditions is accepted, which is more generous than the state veterans cemetery and less generous than the retirement service purchase. The second is an NGB Form 22 with the same characterisation, and here is the condition most sources omit: it must establish "the person's qualifying military service of at least twenty years in the National Guard." Twenty years. A Guard member with an honorable NGB Form 22 and twelve years of service cannot use this route. The twenty-year requirement appears nowhere in the DD-214 route. The third is a Veterans Identification Card, the VA's VIC, "or a letter from a Military Reserve component notifying the recipient of the person's eligibility for retirement pay at age sixty (twenty-year letter)". Then the exclusion: "A Veterans Health Identification Card (VHIC) may not be accepted." That exclusion catches people. The VHIC is the card a veteran enrolled in VA health care carries and is by far the most common VA card in circulation. It is not a document the Department of Motor Vehicles will take for this purpose. The VIC, which is the separate proof-of-service card a veteran applies for through VA, is. So a Guard retiree with eighteen years and a VA health card has no route; a Guard member with a twenty-year letter does, through the third route, without needing twenty years on the NGB Form 22 itself. Subsection (C) leaves the form of the designation to the department. It is a marking on the licence, not a separate credential, and it does not by itself establish eligibility for any benefit in this file. It is useful for the routine case of proving veteran status at a retailer, a ballgame or a clinic desk without carrying a DD-214. The licence itself costs twenty-five dollars for eight years under subsection (A), and 2019 Act No. 86 rewrote subsection (B) into its current document list. Two related Department of Motor Vehicles provisions sit outside this section. A licence held by a service member or dependent stationed outside South Carolina remains valid for ninety days after discharge where it expired during, or within ninety days of starting, the out-of-state service. And an active duty member or dependent stationed outside the State may renew online or by mail, with a mail renewal fee, on production of military orders, a photograph and evidence of compliance with the vision test. Commercial licensing has its own military accommodations: an even exchange waiver of the knowledge and skills tests for a driver holding one of the named military occupational specialties, and a skills test waiver for a member with at least two years licensed on a similar military vehicle and three thousand miles of driving experience. Both require a South Carolina driver's licence and either continued service or discharge within the previous twelve months.