Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US campus) benefits, spec. those of the GI Bill that puts US service veterans through college for free; thus ext. as supplies, food.

1970		D. Ponicsan Last Detail 33: They sure are the benies if you don’t have an education.
1971		Army Reporter Feb. in Maledicta VI:1+2 252: The wolf takes a shortcut to arrive there first, whereupon he [...] climbs inta her rack, there to wait the imminent arrival of Hood with the bennies.
1972		T. O’Brien If I Die in a Combat Zone (1980) 56: What’s the problem, mess hall not dishing out the bennies?
1976		(con. 1969) C.R. Anderson Grunts xiv: Life in the bush was generally a bummer [...] rarely broken by the bennies, benefits like warm beer and letters from the World, the United States. [Ibid.] 96: The re-supply bird deposited the usual bennies plus freshly-baked bread and pickles.
1981		M. Baker Nam (1982) 140: I was kind of on my own, which was good. I was able to give my men three in-country R&Rs and a few other little bennies.
1990		(con. c.1970) G. Hasford Phantom Blooper 9: He took the bullet train to Kyoto, scarfed up beaucoup sake and Japanese bennies, and took long hot baths with slant-eyed naked jailbait.
1997		D. Lehane Sacred 148: [F]ifty thousand dollars is a lot of money, particularly when [...] your chosen profession isn't known for its workmen’s comp bennies.
2004		Simon & Price ‘All Due Respect’ Wire ser. 3 ep. 2 [TV script] Less troops, less salaries, less benies.