35 cents
VOL. 4/ISSUE 49
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2016
FDVA prepares 2017 benefits guide
Famous or
infamous?
Patrick McCallister FOR VETERAN VOICE
pmccallister@veteranvoiceweekly.com
A lot of Florida veterans have $5,000 property tax exemptions due them. Others are completely exempt from paying property taxes if they ask for it. The state offers free disabled-veteran ID cards that are proof of eligibility for those and many other benefits. Some veterans don’t have to pay to drive on state toll roads. All honorably discharged veterans get a 25-percent discount at state parks. Some get in them free of charge. No need to take a DD-214 everywhere to get the park and other state discounts — Florida offers a “V” designation on driver’s licenses and identification cards. Many well and lesser known state and federal benefits are detailed in the annual Florida Veterans Benefits Guide compiled by the Florida Department of Veterans Affairs. The state veterans department is now preparing the 2017 edition, which will be published in November. “The Florida Veterans Benefits Guide has been published as long as I’ve been here, which is going on 11 years,” Steve Murray, communications director at the state
See GUIDE page 1
Source: National Museum of American History American-born Iva Toguri D’Aquino, known during World War II as radio personality ‘Tokyo Rose,’ was convicted of treason after the war and sentenced in San Francisco to 10 years in prison and fined $10,000.
Historians divided on guilt of World War 2 broadcaster Mary Kemper STAFF WRITER
mkemper@veteranvoiceweekly.com
Every World War II G.I., and every American in general, knew about Tokyo Rose. Across the globe, on her weekly broadcasts, she taunted American troops over battle defeats, and gloated about Japanese victories. She never missed an opportunity to slip in digs about troops’ wives cheating on them, or their children forgetting who they were. She was reviled by one and all. But was she truly guilty? Coerced, or collaborator? Historians are divided.
Iva Toguri was American-born, ironically on the 4th of July, 1916. Shortly before the Pearl Harbor attack, Toguri traveled to Japan to look after her aunt, who was ill. The aunt recovered, but Toguri became stuck in Japan when war was declared. She tried to be interned along with other Americans, but the Japanese authorities refused her request. Because she was American didn’t even know any Japanese, and was openly contemptuous of the culture other Japanese citizens shunned her. She found it hard to find work, but on
See ROSE page 2