Secret guerilla unit recognition updates, five other changes in veterans’ law

A single topic turned into a multi-part new law that focuses on veterans.

Among its provisions, the law that largely takes effect Aug. 1, 2026, provides veteran designation for Special Guerrilla and Irregular Forces veterans who served under CIA direction in the 1961-1975 Secret War in Laos.

A 2025 law created state statute recognizing Veteran of the Secret War in Laos who served honorably with special guerrilla units or other irregular forces and made these veterans eligible for specific state benefits, including veteran designation on driver’s licenses and identification cards, burial privileges at state veterans’ cemeteries, grave markers purchased by the Department of Veteran Affairs, honor guards, and permissive preference for veterans in private employment. It also created a working group on benefits for veterans of the Secret War in Laos.

The 2026 law includes working group recommendations, including clarifying technical changes and modifications, including a burial fee reference, addition of “SGU Veteran” on driver’s licenses or state identification cards beginning Jan. 1, 2027, and civil service recruitment preference. It also establishes a comprehensive eligibility process for Special Guerilla Unit veterans to access many of the same benefits as other Minnesota veterans and modifies the benefits these veterans are entitled to receive.

The law calls for $200,000 from the General Fund — $141,000 is onetime funding — in Fiscal Year 2027; however, it also cancels a $100,000 appropriation from the 2025 law.

The law will also:

• allow honorably discharged members of the National Guard or another reserve component of the armed forces and their eligible dependents to be interred in a state veterans cemetery;

• meet federal requirements by eliminating the need for legislative approval and permitting the Department of Veterans Affairs to close a veterans home in the unlikely event the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issue an involuntary termination notice for a state veterans home;

• set the base pay for E-1 (Private) through E-4 (Specialist) National Guard members called to state service under emergency executive order at the rate set by the federal government’s Defense Finance and Accounting Service pay tables for an E-5 (Sergeant) service member;

• enact into statute the Commanders Task Force that has advised the Legislature, governor, Department of Veterans Affairs and others on veterans-related issues since 1988; and

• establish requirements for the Department of Veterans Affairs when administering legislatively directed competitive and direct grants, including creation of a grant application scoring system to evaluate applicants based on their demonstrated history of serving veterans; establishing grantee eligibility; and placing limitations on the use of grant money to fund services for veterans and active service members and their immediate family, and immediate family members of a veteran who died in the line of duty.

Rep. Bidal Duran (R-Bemidji) and Sen. Aric Putnam (DFL-St. Cloud) are the sponsors.

HF3522*/SF3955/CH96

HF3522* / SF3955 / CH96