Wisconsin High School Diploma for Wartime Veterans

Wisconsin awards a high school diploma to a veteran who left a Wisconsin high school before graduating in order to serve on active duty during a wartime period, and who was honorably discharged. Two age routes open it. A veteran aged 65 or over qualifies. A veteran aged 55 or over qualifies if they have a service-connected disability. The lower age for a disabled veteran is the part most often missed, and it moves the benefit forward by a decade for the people most likely to want it. The programme is not restricted to the Second World War, which distinguishes it from the equivalent in several states in this catalog. Wisconsin uses its own war period definition in 45.01(13), which runs from the Indian Wars through the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Insurrection, the Boxer Rebellion, Mexican border service and both world wars to Korea, Vietnam and the periods after. A Vietnam-era veteran who left school to enlist is inside this programme, and in most states would not be. The veteran must have attended a Wisconsin high school. This is not open to a veteran who left school elsewhere and later moved to the state. Application is through the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs rather than through the former school district or the Department of Public Instruction, which is a simpler route than several states use. What the diploma is worth is not employment or admission at this stage of life. It is a record, and it closes something. For a family it is also a document that can be requested on behalf of a veteran who has died, though a survivor should confirm current practice with the department, since the statute is written around the living veteran. The chapter 45 definition of war period is worth reading in its own right if the question is whether a particular period of service counts, because it is enumerated rather than left to the federal list, and it is the same definition that decides the GI Bill remission, veterans home eligibility and much else in Wisconsin. A veteran told their service does not count for one chapter 45 programme is usually being told it does not count for all of them.