[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 6 (Monday, February 12, 1996)]
[Page 228]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Memorandum on Benefits for Military Personnel Subject to Involuntary 
Separation

February 9, 1996

Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of 
Transportation, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Subject: Benefits for Military Personnel Involuntarily Separated from 
the Armed Services as a Result of HIV

    The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996 (S. 
1124) contains a provision I strongly oppose, which requires the 
discharge of all military personnel living with the Human 
Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), regardless of whether there is any medical 
necessity for such discharge. This provision is clearly discriminatory 
and wholly unwarranted. It is also highly punitive. Service members 
discharged pursuant to this provision would not receive the benefits to 
which they would otherwise be entitled had they continued to serve until 
it became medically necessary for them to retire.
    Consequently, I will give my full support to legislative efforts to 
repeal this provision.
    In the meantime, I am committed to ensuring full benefits to these 
service members and their families to ameliorate the unfair burden this 
legislation will place on them. I am therefore directing you, in 
consultation with the Office of Management and Budget and such other 
agencies as may be appropriate, to take all necessary steps, consistent 
with applicable law, to ensure that these service members and their 
families receive the full benefits they are entitled to, including, 
among other things, disability retirement pay, health care coverage for 
their families, and transition benefits such as vocational education.
    This memorandum is for the internal management of the executive 
branch and does not create any right or benefit, substantive or 
procedural, enforceable by any party against the United States, its 
agencies or instrumentalities, its officers or employees, or any person.
                                            William J. Clinton