Military Heroes Will Never Demand Charity

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Military Heroes Will Never Demand Charity Dave Eberhart, NewsMaxMonday, March 25, 2002 War has always been portrayed as hell, and now as also financially unfair to the survivors of the gallant fallen - at least to those who consider the disparity between what a 9-11 survivor can expect as compensation for the loss of a family member and what the survivors of a GI killed during operations in the Afghanistan theater rate as a matter of law.Kenneth Feinberg, the 9-11 fund administrator, announced this month that the average award would grow to about $1.85 million, about $200,000 more than calculated in December. He also guaranteed a minimum payout of $250,000. Additionally, the award for each surviving spouse and child of the 9-11 attack has doubled to $100,000, and families will get money for the lost earning potential of victims. In stark contrast, the amount of money due to the survivors of our heroes in Afghanistan (or in the future, the Philippines and elsewhere) who are killed in the far-ranging war on terrorism is a $6,000 direct death benefit -- half of which is taxable. Additionally, $1,750 is allotted for burial costs. If you are the surviving spouse, you get $833 a month until you remarry. And there's a payment of $211 per month for each child -- until the age of 18. A review of pending legislation before Congress reveals a number of bills concerning military survivor benefits, but all basically address tax relief and the removal of offsets. None offer any outright increases in entitlement to survivors of military men and women killed in action or by accident.The media, however, has been trumpeting the issue.ABC's Sam Donaldson recently asked Afghan War commander Gen. Tommy Franks about the disparity. "[F]or more than 200 years, the U.S. has done a great job of taking care of -- of her men and women in uniform," said Franks. "I think -- I think the way our people and their families are cared for is something that -- that every service member is aware of, and, in fact proud of."I suspect that -- that anytime there is seen to be some -- some discrepancy, such as the one that you described, that -- that this nation will take a look at it, and if it makes sense to change it, I suspect that it'll be changed. "As you know, I'm a -- I'm a tactical commander, and I'm involved with the forces who are out here on this battlefield, and I have great confidence in the leadership that we have in Washington to review issues like this, and -- and so it would probably be wrong of me to try to comment on it." GI Life InsuranceIn all fairness, supplementing the military death gratuity entitlements listed above, the beneficiaries of those GIs who have been killed by accident or hostile fire are also eligible to be paid up to $250,000 -- assuming the fallen troops purchased the maximum amount of insurance the military offers. It's called Servicemen's Group Life Insurance or SGLI.SGLI, available to all members of the uniformed services, is a group life insurance policy purchased by the government from a commercial life insurance company. Members on active duty or inactive duty for training and members of the ready reserve are eligible to purchase the insurance in $10,000 increments, up to a maximum of $250,000. The Military Survivors' Bill signed into law by President Bush in June 2001, extended life insurance coverage to spouses and dependent children of members insured under the SGLI program, effective November 1, 2001. Each dependent child (under the age of 18 or 23 if enrolled in an accredited institution of higher learning) is automatically insured for $10,000, at no cost to the member. In the meantime, as our soldiers and their families have remained characteristically stoic about the disparity, some of the victims from the Oklahoma City bombing are campaigning for the same deal that the September 11th families are getting. Getting on the Gravy TrainIn addition, as pointed out recently by Rush Limbaugh on his program, some of the families of those bombed in the embassies are now asking for compensation as well. Howard Kavale, for instance, who lost his 46-year-old wife, Prabhi, a veteran State Department employee in al-Qaeda's 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, is glad families who lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks will get help, but he's angry that his own family wasn't treated the same way. Neither he nor his two daughters received special help. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., recently told USA TODAY that the revolution in expectations was generated by the airline bailout, which is what gave birth to the 9-11 fund in the first place. Said Reid, [But for the bailout] ``we probably wouldn't have this program for the victims.'' He added that future attacks with weapons of mass destruction, for instance, could leave so many victims that high-level compensation would be impossible.Tom Segel of Military E' Sprit.Net went even further in his analysis of the revolution in expectations, bringing up the plight of those who lost family members or suffered injury in the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 and the families who lost loved ones when the USS Cole was attacked. He added potentially: the tower bombing in Saudi Arabia, the murders in Somalia, the attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the bombing attacks on airliners ... "You can pick from a long list of atrocities," he concluded. And how about the still suffering and needy survivors of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War? Segal asked, playing devil's advocate.With all the permutations, it's no wonder that Gen. Franks has been vague and Congress relatively silent http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/3/24/112616.shtml