Veterans can receive extra Social Security credits

As many veterans are reaching the age of retirement here is something to remember. When you sign
up for the first time make sure you mention your military service. It can mean extra money for you.

You will have to send a copy of your DD-214 or other proof of service to the Social Security Office.
Here is an idea of how much credit you can get.

Some veterans who served between 1940 and 2001 will be eligible for additional Social Security earnings. Depending on the length of time and frame of time of your service, you can benefit as follows:

• If you served from 1978 to 2001, you are given a $100 credit for each $300 of active duty pay you received, up to a maximum $1,200 per year. 
• If you served from 1957 to 1977, you are given an automatic $300 earnings credit for each quarter in which you received basic pay, regardless of how much pay you were earning at the time.
• If you served from 1940 to 1956, you did not pay any taxes toward Social Security. However, you will still be credited $160 per month for any service between September 16, 1940, and December 31, 1956, to be paid out to you through Social Security benefits. 

These figures are not the actual amount you will receive, they are credits added to your earnings as
a civilian to determine your monthly check; which comes on the second Wednesday of each month.

Jerald Terwilliger
National Chairman
American Cold War Veterans
"We Remember"

---------------- "And so the greatest of American triumphs... became a peculiarly joyless victory. We had won the Cold War, but there would be no parades." -- Robert M. Gates, 1996