Damn I hate that word, but it's apparently the one the current law still uses.

Some of you may remember that in the past I spent a significant amount of time pushing for the passage of the HEROES Act, and, later, for the correction of what I considered to be major flaws in the original act. (Refresh your memory here.) This mail from Jackie Ferguson pretty much made my whole day:

Mr Faith, It has been a long time. Today I recieved a letter informing me that in June 2006 suuplimental appropriations were included to increase the death gratuity that I received to $100,000.    The letter says that all deceased service members that died on active duty from Oct 7 2001 will be elgiable.  And it will include us because the bill also includes Soldiers that were retired by being placed on the Temporary or permanent Disablity Retirement List.

Jackie's husband was disabled by, and eventually died due to, a stateside training accident. She received a $12,400 "Death Gratuity" and his SGLI. Had he died in a war zone, the HEROES Act would have increased the "gratuity" retroactively to $100,000. It took till June of this year for Congress to admit her husband is just as dead, and Spencer misses his daddy just as much, as if he'd died in combat. Today she finally received official notice from the government that she has more money coming. It's about damned time.

Sessions/Lieberman '08!

Contributed by Bill Faith on September 2, 2006 at 08:25 PM in Bill Faith, Caring about our troops | Permalink

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