In February 1947, following the outbreak of full-scale war on 19 December 1946, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam instituted an official pension for its war disabled and martyr families. In 1956 and again in 1959 the government fulfilled this by decreeing that the state would provide pensions to martyr families, those of fallen soldiers, cadres, workers, and other patriots who had died or had gone missing in action since 19 August 1945. Only those families whose deceased had served a minimum of three years in his or her wartime capacity could receive permanent pension benefits. Budget concerns guided the state’s issuances of pensions. The government took into account the economic situation of the family and only provided pensions after a thorough investigation and certification of the deceased’s case. In 1962, the maximum a family could receive, even if it had lost more than one member to the war, was thirty dongs a month per family. See also EXPERIENCE OF WAR; MYTH OF WAR.