The National Assembly this week will begin reviewing a draft bill aiming to provide monetary compensation to South Korea’s Vietnam War veterans, officials said Wednesday.

The bipartisan bill proposes that the government pay the country’s 346,000 vets about 396 billion won ($358 million) over the next five years. The money intends to cover combat allowances that allegedly went unpaid during the Vietnam War.

Lawmakers from both the governing Saenuri Party and the opposition sitting on the Assembly’s defense committee support it, according to a parliamentary official who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

But the bill’s passage is likely to take much time, the official said, as the government appears reluctant to dish out cash to veterans, and because of a local court ruling in February this year that could weaken the bill’s raison d’etre.

“The government is likely to delay submitting related documents, saying it needs time to conduct its own study of the issue. And bureaucratic resistance to money payments is expected,” the authority said.

A court ruling is also expected to adversely affect the bill.

South Korean combat troops were paid deployment allowances from the U.S., in addition to their regular monthly salaries from their own government during the war.

Some veterans said, however, they should have been paid an additional combat duty allowance in accordance with South Korea’s Military Personnel Remuneration Act and filed a suit with the Seoul Central District Court last year.

Some of the plaintiffs claimed they were unaware about the clause on combat compensation, partially explaining why it took them more than four decades to file the suit.

However, the court ruled that the deployment allowances veterans had received should be considered as their combat duty allowances.

Veterans appealed the ruling, but a Seoul appellate court sent the case back to the district court.

“Other legal interpretations support that view,” said a mid-level Defense Ministry official familiar with the draft bill. The official refused to comment extensively as he did not have permission to speak.

“The Vietnam War was considered an overseas deployment, and not necessarily subject to the combat duty allowance clause,” the official added.

South Korea first sent troops to Vietnam in 1964. The first combat troops arrived there in October 1965. The Army’s 9th Division, Capital Mechanized Division and elements of what is now the Marine Corps’ 2nd Division participated in combat operations.

The veterans feel underappreciated by the public.

Kim Kwang-whi is a former Army artillery officer who served in Vietnam from 1965 to 1966. Although Kim is not one of the plaintiffs in the recent lawsuit, he sympathizes with their cause. The 72-year-old added that it was only in the 1990s that the government officially acknowledged his veterans benefits.

“It was long overdue then, and it would be long overdue now,” Kim said in reference to the combat duty allowances.

By Jeong Hunny (hj257@heraldcorp.com)