Service with responsibility "in securing positions" for veterans separated from active military service under honorable conditions. The Servicemen's Readjustment Act places the Director of Selective Service on a three-man Veterans' Placement Service Board to determine matters of policy relating to the administration of the Veterans' Employment Service, as established under the act. In creating this board, Congress declared as its intent and purpose that "there shall be an effective job counseling and employment service for veterans, and that, to this end, policies shall be promulgated and administered, so as to provide for the maximum of job opportunity in the field of gainful employment."

101.3 Object No. 2-Information.-(a) Under the War Mobilization and Reconversion Act of 1944, which established the Retraining and Reemployment Administration under the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion, the Director of Selective Service serves as a member of the Advisory Council of the Administration, the Selective Service System is represented on each State and local Veterans' Service Committee, and all Selective Service Local Boards function as Veterans' Information Centers.

(b) The Council advises with the Retraining and Reemployment Administrator in discharging his responsibility for exercising general supervision and direction of the activities of all Government agencies relating to retraining, reemployment, vocational education, and vocational rehabilitation, for the purpose of coordinating such activities and eliminating overlapping functions of such agencies.

(c) By order of the Retraining and Reemployment Administrator, a State Veterans' Service Committee has been established in each State, composed of a representative of Selective Service, the Veterans' Administration and the War Manpower Commission. The State Director, in each instance, is the Selective Service representative. Community Veterans' Service Committees also have been formed in each community to determine the need for information centers, to mobilize the efforts of volunteer or other groups in veterans' assistance work, and to act as the contact with the State Veterans' Service Committee.

(d) Order No. 1 of the Retraining and Reemployment Administration designates each Selective Service Local Board as a Veterans' Information Center. Part of a Nation-wide chain, represented by at least one Local Board in each of the 3,000 counties in the United States, these Veterans' Information Centers provide widespread facilities for assisting veterans in obtaining information concerning the rights, privileges, and benefits provided by Federal, State, and local law.

101.4 Object No. 3-Job Opportunities. (a) Only by the fullest cooperation of all agencies, organizations, and persons throughout the United States can the Nation's goal of full employment be achieved. The Selective Service System is an important

part of America's political, military, and economic fabric. It has rendered high service in building the greatest military force in history. Now it has the responsibility of assisting in the return of the discharged soldier and sailor to civilian pursuits. It is a responsibility shared with the many other public and private activities which together make up the complex life of this great Nation.

(b) The 200,000 persons who comprise the Selective Service System themselves constitute an important and influential segment of American life. Their individual contacts and activities in the community, the State, and the Nation, provide a substantial force in remolding a war-torn country into a peaceful and prosperous people. Selective Service seeks to contribute, through its compensated and uncompensated personnel, to the stimulation of industry, commerce, and agriculture to the end that job opportunities may be available for all.

101.5 Organization of the Program.—(a) The activities of the Veterans' Assistance Program are carried out by the National Headquarters, State Headquarters, and Local Boards of the Selective Service System under the direction of the Director of Selective Service. The Veterans' Personnel Division of National Headquarters has the responsibility of general coordination of the program.

(b) Each State Director of Selective Service is responsible for the administration of the program in his State, acting under authority delegated by the Governor. The State Director is authorized to adopt measures considered most adaptable to local conditions, in cooperation with State and local programs for assisting veterans.

(c) In each State Headquarters, a State Veterans' Personnel Division constitutes the operating body which administers the State program. This division is composed of commissioned personnel of the Army and Navy, together with trained civilian personnel, qualified to supervise and coordinate the work of Local Boards in the various communities of the State.

101.6 The Local Board.-(a) Actually engaged in carrying into effect all phases of the Veterans' Assistance Program, but more particularly the objective concerned with employment and reemployment of veterans, are approximately 200,000 members of the Selective Service System-unpaid and paid personnel-working together. Of this number, 24,000 are members of the 6,443 Local Boards, 15,000 are Reemployment Committeemen, 36,000 are physicians and dentists, 75,000 are members of Advisory Boards, 8,000 are lawyers, and 21,000 are paid clerks and other full-time and part-time employees. There is at least one Local Board in every county in the United States.

(b) These are the men who, since 1940, have given their services freely and with patriotic desire to serve their country. They are representative citizens of their communities. They are prepared, both as members of the Selective Service System and as influential citizens of their respective communities, to reintegrate into the economic life of their communities the men they took from the factories, fields, and offices in order to create our fighting forces.

101.7 Local Board Relationship With the Veteran.—(a) In the Local Board files have been built up complete records of the veterans whom they selected for service, records showing the veterans' former job connections, capabilities, and achievements in the service. There has been a relationship of a most confidential sort between the veteran and his Local Board on matters concerning his mental, physical, and financial condition. This provides a basis upon which the veteran may seek and obtain further valuable assistance from the members of his Local Board.

(b) To them responsibility is not new. For more than 4 years they have supplied men to the armed forces and at the same time preserved the industrial and economic stability for war production. This experience has given them an intimate acquaintance with agriculture, business, and industry. They are conversant with the economic situation not only in every community, but in practically every plant and establishment in their community.

101.8 Assistance to Merchant Marine.-At the request of the Administrator, War Shipping Administration, the Director of Selective Service has assumed the responsibility of assisting former members of the United States Merchant Marine in securing their reemployment benefits under the provisions of Public Law 87, Seventy-eighth Congress, approved June 23, 1943. This law contains substantially the same provisions as the act providing reemployment rights of veterans.

101.9 Obligation to the Veteran.-(a) In the post-war economy, the creation of employment opportunities is likely to become one of the Nation's most imperative projects. It is the responsibility of the Selective Service System, as well as of all other Americans, to assist in carrying out that project.

(b) Congress, expressing the thanks of a grateful Nation, has extended many hard-earned and fully deserved rights, benefits, and privileges to the veteran. The transition from the excitement and confusion of military life to the comparative quiet of civilian life is often sudden and bewildering. The veteran finds himself unable to determine exactly what rights have been granted him during his absence, or how and where to obtain those rights. Nor is he sometimes able, even with a knowledge of those rights, to decide which of the many privileges offered are the ones which will best fit him to face the future.

(c) Carrying out their responsibility under the Veterans' Assistance Program makes it necessary that all persons connected

with the Selective Service System be acquainted with the rights, benefits, and privileges to which a veteran is entitled, and where and how those rights can be most readily obtained.

101.10 Opportunities for Veterans.-Experience has shown that military service usually develops both the mind and body of the veteran. Many veterans have become aware of talents and ambitions which had been hidden and unknown to them. They may not be satisfied to return to their former work. They have received specialized training. They have developed new talents. Yesterday's clerk is today's expert mechanic. The veteran who worked indoors most of his life now wants to work on the outside. New ambitions have taken hold, and they are to be encouraged wherever possible. The veteran is entitled to a chance to follow these inclinations. It is the Nation's job, and particularly the job of the Selective Service System, through its Local Boards, to give him every assistance in preparing for a better future.

101.11 Cooperation With Other Agencies.-(a) While the Selective Service System is charged with certain responsibilities to render aid to veterans under the act, it is apparent that the reintegration of veterans into our civilian life is of such magnitude that the cooperation of all citizens is necessary in order to satisfactorily meet that objective. Other agencies of the Federal Government also have been charged with certain responsibilities in assisting veterans both in regard to employment and in regard to educating and rehabilitating them in order that they may be employable and economically independent.

(b) In addition to these Federal agencies, many individual States have undertaken their own programs for the advancement of the interests of their citizens and of their returning veterans. The Selective Service System, in carrying out its Veterans' Assistance Program, will cooperate with the Governor of each State in carrying out such programs in the interest of veterans, to the end that there shall be complete coordination between the Selective Service Veterans' Assistance Program and those of the States.

(c) Many communities and many civic, fraternal, church, veteran, labor, business, industrial, and other organizations have created committees and are engaging in activities on behalf of the returning veteran. In addition to membership in the community Veterans Service Committees organized under Order No. 1 of the Retraining and Reemployment Administration, the Selective Service System, in carrying out its own program, should make every effort to cooperate with and to help coordinate the activities of other organizations or agencies attempting to assist the veteran.