Governor Rick Scott has signed a bill into law redesigning military and veteran specialty license plates as well as updating references to certain wars under Florida’s statute.
The bill signed Thursday contains several provisions, including renaming the Korean Conflict Veteran special license plate to “Korean War.” Florida Department of Veterans’ Affairs Spokesman Steve Murray says it also makes that change in Florida statute along with replacing references to the “Vietnam Era.”
“We received a lot of recommendations from both Korean and Vietnam War veterans to help change some of the statuary languages that talked about the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam Conflict. And, frankly, when you looked at the nature of war, it was important to change it to Korean War and Vietnam War. After all, we did have 35,000 killed in Korea and 58,000 killed in Vietnam. So, very important to make sure we paid proper respect to our Korean War and Vietnam Veterans,” said Murray.
The measure also redesigns 11 existing military-related special use license plates and creates a new one called the Combat Medical Badge plate—all expected to cost about $52,000.
“In addition, the legislation helps to identify many of Florida's veterans. There are license plates out there for veterans of Operation Desert Shield, Operation Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, but they simply have lettering. Now, this legislation will add a graphic element, perhaps the medal itself to show service in Iraq or Afghanistan to help visually illustrate the service to our nation,” added Murray.
This is the second of 105 bills delivered to Governor Rick Scott’s desk last week that he’s signed into law this week. Monday, Scott signed a bill granting in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants.
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