When a business offers a military discount they are only targeting those service members and veterans with military IDs, which means those veterans who do not have a military ID will not be discounted at the business.
When a service member retires from the military he or she gets an ID but those who do not retire do not receive a military ID unless he is 100 percent disabled then he or she gets a Disabled Veterans card.
Only active duty service members carry military IDs. That means only the disabled and active duty members get the discount. The other 350,000 veterans in the state are not able to receive the business discount because it does not specially say “veterans discount.”
Navy veteran Angeleque Woodstock and her friend Beverly Barnes, a volunteer with Oklahoma American Veterans News, are calling local businesses and educating them about their “military discount.”
“It’s unbelievable when you think of the number of veterans who aren’t getting the discounts they deserve,” said Woodstock. “Why would they want to honor just disabled vets and not all vets?”
Woodstock said she called companies and ask them if they knew they were leaving out hundreds of thousands of veterans because they do not have military IDs. Some businesses like, National Car, Enterprise, and Alamo changed their policies right a way once she spoke to their corporate offices. Other businesses left their policy as is.
Woodstock is trying to make it clear that veterans need to be offered a discount too.
Oklahoma Senator Roger Ballenger is trying to help veterans identify their service to our country. He pushed legislation through the senate to make all veterans’ drivers licenses and ID cards have a symbol of a flag in the corner that would prove they served our country.
Now, those businesses that offer veterans discounts will have something to look for to see their customer is a veteran.
Woodstock and Barnes are pleased with the new ID symbol; however, they still want all businesses who offer a military discount to also offer the same veterans discount.
They are compiling a list of businesses that offer veterans discounts and also they are creating a Veterans Day event at the Persimmon Hollow Village.
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