An act relating to military affairs

Added new 1 V.S.A. section 152 defining 'Gold Star family member' as any spouse, parent, child, sibling, grandparent, or grandchild of a U.S. Armed Forces member who died while serving or from a service-connected illness or injury.

Added new section amending 23 V.S.A. section 304 regarding registration certificates, number plates, vanity and other special plates, which based on the bill's stated purpose likely provides free parking for disabled veterans via special plates.

Added a formal statement of purpose identifying the bill's four goals: correcting the Adjutant General title, defining Gold Star family member, providing hiring preference for military spouses in State government, and providing free parking for disabled veterans.

Replaced two placeholder sections marked [Deleted] (old Secs. 40 and 41) with actual legislative content under a new 'Gold Star Families' section header, and renumbered subsequent sections accordingly.

Section 40 (1 V.S.A. section 152) defining 'Gold Star family member' as a spouse, parent, child, sibling, grandparent, or grandchild of a service member who died while serving or from a service-connected illness or injury was deleted entirely.

Section 41 (23 V.S.A. section 304(k)) providing for special gold star and next-of-kin license plates issued to widows, widowers, parents, and next of kin of fallen service members was removed from the bill.

Header changed from 'BILL AS PASSED BY THE HOUSE AND SENATE' to 'AS PASSED BY HOUSE AND SENATE'; committee introduction, date, subject, and statement of purpose lines were removed; internal tracking number VT LEG #388820 v.1 was added throughout.

Bill renumbered from H.917 (House bill) to Act No. 88 (enacted act number), reflecting final legislative numbering.

Document reformatted from House bill layout (with line numbers, page headers reading 'BILL AS PASSED BY THE HOUSE', and 26 pages) to enacted act layout (clean text, 'No. 88' headers, 22 pages).

The statement of purpose paragraph was removed from the bill header. It had listed four purposes including defining 'Gold Star family member,' a hiring preference for military spouses in state government, and free parking for disabled veterans.

The bill shrank from 25 pages to 23 pages, indicating that one or more of the provisions referenced in the removed purpose statement (Gold Star family definition, military spouse hiring preference, disabled veteran parking) were likely deleted or substantially reduced during House passage.