There are some little-known groups whose members may be eligible for VA Benefits. The good news is, there are a lot of these little-known groups, so that means that many of you may be eligible for VA Benefits without even knowing it.
If you or your loved one belongs to any of these groups, and received a discharge from the Secretary of Defense, your service may meet the active duty requirements for benefits:
- Recipients of the Medal of Honor
- Honorably discharged veterans, spouses, or children of any military, naval, or air service
- Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAACs)
- Merchant Marines from WWII (ocean-going service)
- U.S. Civilians of the American Field Service
- Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs)
- WWI Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit
- WWI Engineer Field Clerks
- Female clerical employees of the Quartermaster Corps serving with the American Expeditionary Forces in WWI
- Civilian employees of the Pacific naval air bases who actively participated in defense of Wake Island during WWII
- Reconstruction aides and dietitians of WWI
- Male civilian ferry pilots
- Wake Island defenders from Guam
- Civilian personnel assigned to OSS secret intelligence
- Guam Combat Patrol
- Quartermaster Corps members of the Keswick crew on Corregidor during WWII
- U.S. civilians who participated in the defense of Bataan
- U.S. merchant seamen who served on block ships in support of Operation Mulberry in the WWII invasion of Normandy
- American merchant marines in oceangoing service during WWII
- Civilian Navy IFF radar technicians who served in combat areas of the Pacific during WWI
- U.S. civilians of the American Field Service who served overseas under U.S. armies and U.S. army groups in WWII
- U.S. civilian employees of American Airlines who served overseas in contract with the Air Transport Command between 12/14/41 and 8/14/45
- Civilian crewmen of certain U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey vessels between 12/7/41 and 8/15/45
- Members of the American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers) who served between 12/7/41 and 8/14/45
- U.S. civilian flight crew and aviation ground support of Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp. who served overseas between 12/14/41 and 8/14/45
- Honorably discharged members of the American Volunteer Guard, Eritrea Service Command, between 6/21/42 and 3/31/43
- U.S. civilian flight crew and aviation ground support of Northwest Airlines who served overseas between 12/14/41 and 8/14/45
- U.S. civilian female employees of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps who served in the defense of Bataan and Corregidor from 1/2/42 to 2/3/45
- U.S. civilian flight crew and aviation ground support of Brantiff Airways who served overseas in the North Atlantic between 2/26/42 to 8/14/45
- Chamorro and Carolina former native police who received military training in the Donnal area of central Saipan and were placed under command of Lt. Casino of the 6th Provisional Military Police Battalion to accompany U.S. Marines on active, combat patrol from 8/19/45 to 9/2/45
- The operational Analysis Group of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Office of Emergency Management, which served overseas with the U.S. Army Air Corps from 12/7/41 through 8/15/45
- Honorably discharged members of the Alaska Territorial Guard during WWII
You or your loved one must have served in active duty for 90 consecutive days (either in the U.S. or abroad), at least one day of which was during a period of war, in order to meet these requirements. That does not however mean that you must have served overseas, you could have served either at home or abroad.
-Anthony B. Ferraro
CPA, MSTax, JD
