A country’s compassion and loyalty is never shown so well as it when it takes care of those who risk making the ultimate sacrifice: its soldiers and veterans. The Bush administration has begun to see how much it has shortchanged those who serve, but they have not yet done enough for our servicemen.
The Bush administration proposed an increase in death benefits for American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan last Tuesday. The proposal would increase the initial lump-sum benefit to surviving family members of all deceased soldiers from $12,420 to $100,000. It would also increase available life insurance from the Serviceman’s Group Life Insurance program from $250,000 to $400,000 for soldiers killed in ‘combat zones,’ with the government willing to pick up the tab on additional premiums. The program has been made retroactive to the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, in October 2001.
“We can never in any program give someone back their loved one … but we can make your circumstances reasonable, in terms of finances,” David Chu, Pentagon Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness, explained to the Melbourne Herald-Sun.
Though the government is right to support soldiers’ families, it is important to remember that Bush’s budget proposal for 2004 removed nearly $25 billion in veterans’ benefits. The Veteran’s Administration has been forced to charge a $250 treatment fee to wounded veterans; some wounded soldiers must even pay for meals at Walter Reed Military Hospital. Taking care of our veterans, no matter what war they fought in, must be a priority regardless of the cost. The Bush administration needs to make it clear that living veterans are just as important as fallen heroes.
