Historical Context: Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs

~ fortherecordadah

The Historical Context for the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs has been posted from the Records Disposition Authority (RDA) approved by the State Records Commission on April 19, 2023. The RDA establishes disposition requirements by designating records as either temporary records which may be destroyed after a specified retention period, or permanent records, which must be preserved in perpetuity. The complete RDAs for close to 175 agencies can be found on the Alabama Department of Archives and History website.

Alabama citizens have served in the armed forces since before the state’s establishment, with Alabamians fighting in the Creek War of 1813.[1] It was not until the Civil War era, however, that the state of Alabama began issuing specialized resources, compensation, and recognition for the state’s veterans. In the wake of the Civil War, the federal government pioneered an organized, sustained network of assistance available to veterans and their families, including dedicated care facilities and disability compensation. These benefits, however, were only made available to former Union soldiers, leaving Southern states to create their own support systems.[2]

Alabama first began offering assistance to Civil War veterans in 1864, when the Legislature passed a bill authorizing the state to provide “an artificial leg to every maimed indigent soldier of Alabama.”[3] Alabama Act 1867-643 expanded the program and instituted more defined parameters, allocating thirty thousand dollars to provide prosthetics to former soldiers who had lost a limb in service. Veterans submitted written applications to the county probate office, detailing information about service and the circumstances of injury. Accepted applicants received a prosthetic limb crafted to their specifications at no cost. The bill additionally provided that veterans too injured to benefit from a prosthetic would be eligible to receive $100 in compensation. This initiative was renewed twice, in 1872 and 1875.[4]

In 1879, the State Legislature retooled its veterans relief measures,[5] passing a pair of bills that provided financial assistance to former Confederate soldiers who had lost limbs or lost their sight.[6] Soldiers qualifying under the first act were eligible for up to $75 in compensation; soldiers qualifying under the second act were eligible for up to $150 in compensation. As the latter half of the century progressed, these benefits were repeatedly renewed and eventually expanded to offer financial relief to individuals unable to work because of other wartime injuries and to widows who had lost their husbands in the war or due to a service-related injury and had not remarried.[7]

On the national stage, the Civil War also represented a turning point for federal veterans’ care initiatives. Faced with unprecedented numbers of affected soldiers and their families, the U.S. government moved to establish more organized and extensive structures to assist servicemembers.[8] Congress first empowered Abraham Lincoln in 1862 to “purchase cemetery grounds and cause them to be securely enclosed, to be used as a national cemetery for the soldiers who shall die in the service of the country.”[9] That same year, the first twelve national cemeteries opened, many near the sites of significant battles or military training facilities.[10] In Alabama, the first national cemetery was established in 1865 in Mobile to provide for the respectful burial of Union casualties from the Battle of Mobile Bay.[11]

By 1867, the ever-growing network of independent national cemeteries under the oversight of the Army Office of the Quartermaster necessitated the formation of the Cemeterial Branch of this office. Also in 1867, the U.S. Congress passed the National Cemetery Act, which appropriated $750,000 to maintain existing cemeteries and develop new burial grounds, including purchasing land, constructing walls and fencing, building lodging for superintendents, and acquiring headstones. Additionally, Congress allocated funds to pay cemetery superintendents, often disabled Civil War veterans, to provide upkeep for each cemetery. Wooden headstones provided by the Office of the Quartermaster marked burials before being replaced by marble markers beginning in 1873.[12]

While Southern states focused their relief efforts specifically on Confederate war veterans, filling the assistance gap created by the federal government’s decision not to provide benefits to former Confederate soldiers, the national government shifted its attention to helping national military veterans of all wars.[13] Prior to the Civil War, three federal care facilities catered to veterans: the Philadelphia Naval Asylum (opened in 1834), the Old Soldiers’ Home in Washington, D.C. (opened in 1853), and the Government Hospital for the Insane (opened in 1855).[14] In 1865, Congress authorized the establishment of nine National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. Each Home’s facilities included dormitories, hospitals, kitchens, churches, recreational areas, and often cemeteries.[15]

By the turn of the century, Alabama and other states faced a new reality: thirty-five years after the Civil War, even those veterans who survived the conflict uninjured were aging, increasingly infirm, and, in many cases, unable to work and facing destitution. In Alabama, state legislators initially responded to aging veteran populations by further expanding pension eligibility to any “needy soldiers and sailor residents of Alabama, who from wounds or other cause are now unable to earn a livelihood.”[16] The enabling legislation explicitly dictated that veterans unable to support themselves because of sickness or old age would be eligible for pension funds. As counties began implementing the pension program, legislators worked to ensure pension funds were distributed where most needed. Alabama Act 1895-512 permitted the governor to appoint three Confederate veterans in each county to evaluate applicants before issuing pension funds and designated that a fraction of each property tax dollar be set aside for the pension fund; later, Alabama Act 1897-342 extended the act indefinitely. Eventually, conditions necessitated the creation of a State Board of Examiners of Pensions comprising of a physician and two Confederate veterans to examine pensions applications.[17]

Beginning in the early 1880s, other states opened rest homes for Confederate veterans; in many cases, local chapters of national fraternal or charitable organizations like the United Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy led such efforts. Often, these organizations arranged for construction of the home and even accepted residents before securing state appropriations or, in some cases, transferred ownership of lands and facilities to the government to ensure continued funding and operations. Though the public supported the establishment of specialized homes as earned repayment for military service, many veterans themselves hesitated, viewing the homes as charity and a last resort in tough times. This attitude kept home populations small; most would house only around 150 residents at a time, and many veterans only stayed for a year or less.[18]

As Alabama legislators continued to tweak the pension system, independent veterans’ groups turned their attention towards the establishment of a specialized home for former Confederate servicemembers, similar to those established in other Southern states. As in other states, prominent Confederate veterans led the charge in Alabama. The state’s division of the United Confederate Veterans adopted a resolution in 1901 supporting building a home for Confederate veterans in Alabama, one of the earliest actions of that chapter. As the State Legislature was not in session, attorney and former Confederate officer Jefferson M. Falkner purchased and donated 102 acres in Chilton County for that purpose.[19] Securing land was only half the battle, however, and Falkner and the United Confederate Veterans turned to the public for the funds necessary to build proper facilities. After an outpouring of support, construction began in 1902 on the main building of what became the Alabama Home for Confederate Soldiers. Once finished, the property featured ten residential structures, a mix of dormitories and small cottages, and twelve other supporting buildings including an administrative building, a hospital, and barns. The Home admitted the first residents later that same year.[20] Alabama Act 1903-273 formally transferred ownership of the Alabama Home for Confederate Veterans to the State of Alabama and allocated funds to complete construction and provide care to residents. It additionally created a Board of Control made up of ten Confederate veterans from around the state to oversee operations at the facility. Under the state’s control, the Home was designated a refuge for “indigent Confederate Veterans, residing in the State of Alabama, who are unable to make a livelihood on account of physical disability or old age.”

The Board of Control opened the Home not just to indigent veterans, but also to their wives. While legislation originally decreed that wives were only welcome for as long as their husband’s residence, in practice, Confederate widows could continue living at the Home after the death of their resident husband.[21] In 1915, the Legislature formally condoned existing practice in Alabama Act 1915-219, though the Act simultaneously narrowed application eligibility to women over sixty years of age who had been “the wife of such Confederate veteran for five years or more prior to making such application for admission to said home.”

Throughout the first two decades of the twentieth century, the Alabama government and its citizens considered care for its Confederate veterans to be a priority. Even in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, Alabama still focused many of its veterans relief efforts on aging Civil War servicemembers. Governor Charles Henderson noted in his 1919 address to the state legislature that while 73,825 Alabamians were drafted into the U.S. Army, state government officials focused on token commemorative gestures to its young returning veterans rather than concrete re-integration assistance.[22] On the national stage, Congress enacted programs for disability compensation, insurance, and vocational rehabilitation for returning World War servicemembers, including the creation of three smaller predecessor offices to the modern consolidated Veterans Administration.[23] Conversely, the Alabama Legislature focused their recognition of recent veterans on commemoration rather than financial or medical assistance.[24] This focus would remain the status quo until 1927, when Governor William W. Brandon highlighted Spanish-American War and World War I veterans in his address to the legislature:

“This State has not properly recognized the Veterans of the Spanish-American War and the Veterans of the World War. I realize that so long as we have a Confederate soldier or widow of such soldier, the State is unable to pension the Spanish War or World War Veteran… but I believe they are worthy of such recognition.”

To assist returning World War servicemembers and veterans of previous conflicts, Governor Brandon proposed appropriating funds to the American Legion and to the United Spanish American War Veterans. Additionally, the Governor suggested providing space to both organizations in new state facilities to create a central location for veterans to access resources.

The State Legislature exceeded the Governor’s recommendation, creating the position of State Service Commissioner during that same session. Alabama Act 1927-136 provided that the Commissioner be appointed by the Governor from one of three candidates put forth by the American Legion. Of those recommended, each must have served in World War I and received an honorable discharge. The State Service Commissioner was tasked to “aid all residents of the State of Alabama who served in the military or naval forces of the United States during any war in which the United States has been engaged, their relatives, beneficiaries and dependents, to receive from the United States any and all compensation, hospitalization, insurance, or other aid or benefit to which they may be entitled.”

The position of State Service Commissioner lives on today as the head of the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs, though the Department itself would not be formed for nearly another two decades. The initial bill did not provide for any state-specific benefits or funding beyond routine salary and administrative costs. In 1931, legislators added an Assistant State Service Commissioner, two State Service Field Commissioners, and a Secretary to the State Service Commissioner to assist the Commissioner in carrying out his duties.[25] Then, as now, the position directed veterans towards existing federal resources, streamlining the benefits claims process and making it as easy as possible for servicemembers to access aid.

Meanwhile, the Legislature had reliably funded the Home for Confederate Soldiers’ operation for a quarter century.[26] However, by the late 1920s, many of the Home’s veteran residents had passed away; the last residing soldier died in 1934, leaving less than a dozen widows as the last permanent residents of the Home. The facility finally closed its doors in 1939 and transferred the last five widows in residence to the care of the Alabama Department of Public Welfare (a predecessor of the modern Alabama Department of Human Resources). In thirty-seven years of operation, between 1902 and 1939, the Alabama home had cared for approximately 850 veterans and their spouses.[27] The Home may have closed, but the state continued to issue pensions to Confederate veterans until 1955 and to widows of Confederate veterans until the last widow passed away in 2004.[28]

As the Home for Confederate Soldiers concluded its operations, Alabama pioneered new benefits initiatives. Even as the Great Depression swept through Alabama and the nation at large, legislators in 1931 set aside $2,400 to fund scholarships for the children of deceased World War I servicemembers, the first scholarship of its kind in Alabama.[29] Each eligible child between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one could receive free tuition at a state college or secondary school and additional funds for room and board, books, or supplies. The scholarship program was originally intended to last through 1942; however, a successor of this initiative continues today as the G.I. Dependent Scholarship Program, now administered by representatives of the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs. 

As World War II erupted, Alabamians stepped up in unprecedented numbers. Approximately 321,000 Alabama men served in the armed forces, in addition to thousands of Alabama women serving in military support roles through auxiliary organizations like the Women’s Army Corps and the Army Nurse Corps.[30] As early as 1943, the state legislature began considering the eventual return of thousands of servicemembers and their specialized needs as they integrated back into society and the workforce. As a first step, lawmakers enacted legislation authorizing each county to create an office of County Service Commissioner to operate under the auspices of county government. County Service Commissioners’ duties echoed those of the State Service Commissioner: “to aid all residents of [their] county who served in the… armed services during any war in which the United States has been engaged, their relatives, beneficiaries and dependents, to receive from the United States any and all compensation, hospitalization, insurance, or other aid or benefits to which they may be entitled.”[31]

The influx of returning World War II veterans spurred a new awareness of the support needed by returning servicemembers. Governor Chauncey Sparks foresaw this eventuality in his 1945 address to the Legislature, saying “There will be a tremendous dislocation when this war is over. The returning soldier who began a career perhaps at eighteen will have reached maturity, will have had strange and unusual experiences, and will need to be reoriented and furnished some kind of guidance and assistance. The Federal government may undertake to do some or much of what is needed… [but] the job, in reality, is a State function.” Relief efforts for returning soldiers and sailors were no longer a topic confined to the small bubble of the State Service Commission and the county service commissioners; proper treatment and benefits for servicemembers extended into the realms of education, public and mental health, and the state’s economy and workforce.

The state needed to rethink how to best assist veterans, leading to the creation of the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs in 1945. The new agency consolidated the State Service Commissioner and the county service commissioners under one administration and charged the agency’s staff to liaise with the federal government to connect veterans with benefits and to “cooperate with all other heads of the State Departments in coordinating the plans and programs of state agencies which may be utilized in the administration of various aspects of the problems of veterans, and dependents of veterans.”[32] The new State Board of Veterans Affairs, comprising representatives of veterans support organizations, oversaw the agency. Veterans themselves steered the leadership of the state agency formed for their benefit. As new veterans associations have formed in the ensuing years, the Board of Veterans Affairs has expanded its membership to include these organizations, ensuring that the agency continues to be directed by the people it serves.[33]

Since its inception, the mission of the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs has remained the same: to connect Alabama’s servicemembers and their families with well-earned benefits. Over time, the agency expanded its work from offering veterans a method for receiving federal benefits to administering state-led programs specific to Alabama residents.

In 1951, the agency revived the dormant scholarship program for the dependents of servicemembers who had suffered a disability in the course of their service, died in the line of duty, or been declared missing in action. Dependents received full tuition for any state two-year, four-year, or trade school program.[34] The program’s scope has changed in the course of its seventy years of existence. The Department adopted the federal tuition cap in 2017, and the state Legislature authorized students to apply scholarship money to a select list of Alabama private schools in 2022.[35]

Also in 1951, the Legislature passed enabling legislation for a future cemetery administered by the agency, authorizing the Department to “develop and implement state-wide plans for a repatriation program for proper re-interment, with appropriate honors, of the bodies of members of the armed services returned from temporary overseas cemeteries.”[36] At the time, the state was home to one national cemetery, the Mobile National Cemetery. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs additionally opened the Fort Mitchell National Cemetery in Russell County in 1987 and the Alabama National Cemetery in Montevallo in 2009.[37] That same year, the Legislature moved to establish a state veterans cemetery. Governor Bob Riley signed Alabama Act 2009-788 into law on May 22, 2009, at the future site of the Alabama Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Spanish Fort. The first interments occurred in April 2013; since then, more than five thousand Alabama veterans and their families have chosen the cemetery’s grounds as their final resting place.

By the 1980s, the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs faced a familiar challenge: providing appropriate assistance to an aging veteran population. In 1982, the average age of World War II veterans was 64 years old. Alabama met the challenge with an old solution to a revived problem: a designated care home, operated by the state, exclusively catering to former members of the armed forces. In September 1988, the State Legislature granted the Department permission to construct and operate necessary veterans homes and receive funding from the federal Veterans Administration for that purpose.[38] Just over a year later, the Bill Nichols State Veterans Home, named for late U.S. Representative and Army veteran Bill Nichols, opened its doors in Alexander City to its first residents. The agency opened an additional two Homes in 1995, the William F. Green State Veterans Home in Bay Minette and the Floyd E. “Tut” Fann State Veterans Home in Huntsville, and a fourth Home in 2012, the Colonel Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home in Pell City. All four homes provide skilled nursing care to residents; the Howard Home additionally serves as a domiciliary/assisted living facility for residents with less intensive medical needs. In July 2022, construction began on a fifth Home, the Command Sergeant Major Bennie G. Adkins State Veterans Home, in Enterprise.[39] The agency constructs new facilities based on the needs of the veteran population living in the state, including the age distribution of veteran populations and the population’s disability level.

Since its earliest days, the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs has endeavored to fulfill its mission to “promote awareness, assist eligible veterans, their families, and survivors to receive from the U.S. and State Governments any and all benefits to which they may be entitled under existing or future laws to be enacted.” Agency staff administer and adjust programs over time to best address the changing needs of veterans, whether through special programs, health assistance, or even monetary compensation.[40] In 2023, the Department offers Alabama veterans of all six military branches support for a myriad of challenges facing former servicemembers, including suicide prevention and homelessness, in addition to assisting individuals in accessing federal benefits.[41] The Department prides itself on living up to its motto, “Proudly Serving America’s Finest,” by channeling assistance from the state and federal governments to serve its veterans as well as they served the country.

[1] Kathryn Braund, “Creek War of 1813-14,” Encyclopedia of Alabama, updated January 30, 2017, http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1820.

[2] Michael Megelsh, “Caring for Veterans: The Civil War and the Present,” The Journal of the Civil War Era, February 28, 2017, https://www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2017/02/caring-veterans-civil-war-present/#_ftnref10.

[3] Alabama Act 1864-8.

[4] Alabama Act 1872-17; Alabama Act 1875-53.

[5] In accordance with agency practice, this document refers to programs, initiatives, and benefits aimed at former members of the armed forces in the plural, not the plural possessive (ex.: “veterans benefits”).

[6] Alabama Acts 1879-23 and 1879-24.

[7] Alabama Act 1880-20; Alabama Act 1883-109; Alabama Act 1885-95; Alabama Act 1887-23; Alabama Act 1889-96.

[8] While “servicemember” may be spelled as one or two words, the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs uses the single-word spelling. This document also spells “servicemember” as one word in keeping with the agency’s practices.

[9] National Cemetery Administration, “Facts: NCA History and Development,” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, updated September 29, 2021, https://www.cem.va.gov/facts/NCA_History_and_Development_1.asp.

[10] National Cemetery Administration, “Dates of Establishment: National Cemeteries & NCA Burial Sites,” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, updated October 19, 2021, https://www.cem.va.gov/facts/Dates_of_Establishment_1.asp. The first twelve cemeteries were Alexandria National Cemetery in Alexandria, Virginia; Annapolis National Cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland; Camp Butler National Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois; Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York; Danville National Cemetery in Danville, Kentucky; Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; Fort Scott National Cemetery in Fort Scott, Kansas; Keokuk National Cemetery in Keokuk, Iowa; Loudon Park National Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland; Mill Springs National Cemetery in Nancy, Kentucky; New Albany National Cemetery in New Albany, Indiana; and the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

[11] National Park Service, “Mobile National Cemetery, Mobile, Alabama,” U.S. Department of the Interior, accessed June 24, 2022, https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/national_cemeteries/alabama/mobile_national_cemetery.html. 

[12] Today, the National Cemetery Administration maintains 155 cemeteries and thirty-four soldiers lots or monument sites in forty-two states. The National Park Service cares for an additional fourteen cemeteries as part of their responsibilities towards historic sites and battlefields.

[13] VA History Office, “History – Department of Veterans Affairs (VA),” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, updated May 27, 2021, https://www.va.gov/HISTORY/VA_History/Overview.asp.

[14] Frances M. McMillen and James S. Kane, “Institutional Memory: The Records of St. Elizabeths Hospital at the National Archives,” Prologue Magazine, National Archives and Records Administration, updated July 23, 2020, https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2010/summer/institutional.html. The Philadelphia Naval Asylum relocated to Gulfport, Mississippi in 1976, where it is now known as the Armed Forces Retirement Home – Gulfport. The Old Soldiers’ Home is now known as the Armed Forces Retirement Home – Washington, D.C. The Government Hospital for the Insane continues operations as Saint Elizabeths Hospital, a mental health hospital operated by the Department of Behavioral Health of the City of Washington, D.C.

[15] National Cemetery Administration, “Facts: NCA History and Development,” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, updated September 29, 2021, https://www.cem.va.gov/facts/NCA_History_and_Development_1.asp.

[16] Alabama Act 1891-286.

[17] Alabama Act 1899-421.

[18] R. B. Rosenburg, Living Monuments: Confederate Soldiers’ Homes in the New South (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993).

[19] R. B. Rosenburg, Living Monuments: Confederate Soldiers’ Homes in the New South (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993).

[20] Bill Rambo, “Confederate Memorial Park,” Encyclopedia of Alabama, updated October 8, 2014, http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-2366.

[21] Bill Rambo, “Confederate Memorial Park,” Encyclopedia of Alabama, updated October 8, 2014, http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-2366.

[22] Among these measures were the creation of the Alabama Memorial Commission by Alabama Act 1919-9. The work of the commission resulted in the construction of the World War Memorial Building, which houses the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

[23] VA History Office, “History – Department of Veterans Affairs (VA),” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, updated May 27, 2021, https://www.va.gov/HISTORY/VA_History/Overview.asp. Congress created the Veterans Bureau, the Bureau of Pensions of the Interior Department, and the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers between 1917 and 1920. World War I programs were consolidated under the umbrella of the Veterans Bureau in 1921, before all three entities, along with other scattered federal veterans programs, were merged by President Herbert Hoover in 1930 to create the Veterans Administration. The modern iteration of the federal Veterans Administration, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, incorporates three subsidiary agencies: the Veterans Health Administration, the Veterans Benefits Administration, and the National Cemetery Administration.

[24] A notable exception came with the passage of Alabama Act 1921-5, which authorized a poll tax exemption for World War I veterans.

[25] Alabama Act 1931-633.

[26] Alabama Act 1907-205; Alabama Act 1909-173; Alabama Act 1911-165; Alabama Act 1915-688; Alabama Act 1919-16; Alabama Act 1927-413; Alabama Act 1935-373.

[27] R. B. Rosenburg, Living Monuments: Confederate Soldiers’ Homes in the New South (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993).

[28] Associated Press, “Last widow of Civil War veteran dies,” NBC News, May 31, 2004, https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna5106000. Alberta Martin married William Jasper Martin, 81, in 1927 when she was 21 years old.

[29] Alabama Act 1931-640.

[30] Allen Cronenberg, Forth to the Mighty Conflict: Alabama and World War II (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1995).

[31] Alabama Act 1943-586.

[32] Alabama Act 1945-173.

[33] The State Board of Veterans Affairs initially comprised representatives of the American Legion, the United Spanish American War Veterans, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Disabled American Veterans. Alabama Act 1966-207 added representatives of the Veterans of WWI of the USA, Incorporated; Alabama Act 1975-1038 added representatives from AMVETS; Alabama Act 1986-504 added representatives from the American Ex-Prisoners of War, Incorporated; Alabama Act 1990-526 added representatives of the Vietnam Veterans of America; Alabama Act 1994-262 added representatives from the Military Order of the Purple Heart; Alabama Act 2011-625 added representatives of the Alabama Alliance of the Military Officers Association of America, Incorporated and the Marine Corps League. All organizations are represented by a number of members in proportion to the number of veterans they serve.

[34] Alabama Act 1951-47.

[35] Alabama Act 2017-349; Alabama Act 2022-91.

[36] Alabama Act 1951-960.

[37] National Cemetery Administration, “Fort Mitchell National Cemetery,” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, updated April 26, 2019; National Cemetery Administration, “Alabama National Cemetery,” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, updated October 28, 2020.

[38] Alabama Act 1988-776: “An Act: To authorize the State Department of Veterans’ Affairs to provide for the operation of a state veterans’ home or homes; to provide for the administration of such homes; to authorize the receipt and use of federal and other funds for such purpose; to provide for the powers and duties of the State Board of Veterans’ Affairs regarding said veterans’ home; to create a veterans’ home trust fund; to provide certain admission and discharge policy; to require certain reports and budget requests; to specify reimbursement policy; and to provide that certain certification requirements are met.”

[39] Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs, “Rabren General Contractors selected to build new ADVA State Veterans Home,” June 24, 2022, https://va.alabama.gov/rabren-general-contractors-selected-to-build-new-adva-state-veterans-home/.

[40] Alabama Act 1973-760: “An Act: To authorize and provide for the payment out of the general fund in the state treasury of a gratuity to each member of the armed services from this State who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam; to provide for the administration of this Act by the State Department of Veterans Affairs.”

[41] As of 2023, the six branches of the military which the Department supports are the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force, and Coast Guard.

Sources of Information

  • Representatives of the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs
  • Code of Alabama 1975, Title 31, Chapter 5
  • Code of Alabama 1975, Title 31, Chapter 5A
  • Code of Alabama 1975, Title 31, Chapter 6
  • Code of Alabama 1975 § 38-4-12 through -12.1

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