Who Counts as a Veteran in Wisconsin

Wisconsin is more orderly than most states in this catalog about what a veteran is. Section 45.01(12) gives one definition, it has twelve routes, and the GI Bill remission, the veterans homes, the fee waiver, the retraining grant, VetEd and the business certification all point at it. Section 45.001 comes first and does something different. It is a recognition provision rather than a definition: the state recognises as veterans the men and women of Wisconsin who served on active duty, who served in a reserve unit, and who served in the national guard. Section 45.01(12) then says "veteran", except in 45.001, means the following, and narrows it. The twelve routes, in summary: active duty for a qualifying term during a war period or in a crisis zone; two continuous years or the full initial service obligation, whichever is less; 90 days or more during a war period or under executive order 10957; entitlement to the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, the Navy or Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal or an equivalent; honorable discharge for a service-connected disability or for hardship; release under honorable conditions in a reduction in force; death in service; missing in action; death from a service-connected disability; and death in the line of duty on inactive or active duty for training. Two of the twelve are limited to driver licences and identification cards, and they are the interesting ones. Section 45.01(12)(k) makes a veteran, for purposes of 343.14 and 343.17 only, a person admitted to the United States as a refugee from Laos who served with a special guerilla unit or irregular forces operating from a base in Laos in support of the U.S. military between February 28, 1961 and September 18, 1978. Documentation is as provided under the federal Hmong Veterans' Naturalization Act of 2000. Wisconsin has one of the largest Hmong populations in the United States, many of them the families of men who fought for the United States in Laos and were never recognised as American veterans. This provision gives them the veteran designation on a state licence. It gives nothing else, and the catalog records it because it is easy to read the word veteran in 45.01(12) and assume it opens the chapter. Section 45.01(12)(L) does the same for a former member of the armed forces with a discharge under honorable conditions, or a former reserve or Guard member who completed the initial term of obligated service, again for licence purposes only. So Wisconsin recognises a broader group for the licence designation than for its benefits, deliberately. Two supporting definitions decide more cases than the main list. War period in 45.01(13) is enumerated rather than borrowed, running from the Indian Wars and the Spanish-American War through both world wars to Korea, Vietnam and after. Crisis zone in 45.01(11) is a separate list: Lebanon and Grenada, the Iran hostage rescue attempt and the valor ribbon, the 1986 action against Libya, the USS Stark, Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom with a 90-day requirement, Panama, Somalia and Bosnia. A veteran whose service does not fall in a war period should check the crisis zone list before concluding they are outside chapter 45. One definition sits outside chapter 45 and governs the largest benefit. The property tax credit in 71.07(6e) has its own eligibility test, its own residency rule and its own definition of individual unemployability, and satisfying 45.01(12) does not open it. A veteran rated 100 percent who does not meet the 71.07(6e) residency test gets nothing from the credit, and a veteran who fails 45.01(12) but meets 71.07(6e) gets the whole of their property tax back.