FIRST THINGS FIRST

As most of you know, the fair treatment of wounded warriors -- active duty and Veterans -- has become a personal mission of mine. In that vein, here is the text of an email sent to our Congressman:

Dear Congressman _____________:

We have grave concerns about the relative funding priorities in legislation recently approved by the Veterans Affairs Committee.

We are especially concerned that H.R. 760 would significantly increase U.S. veterans' benefits for Filipino veterans, including non-US citizens living in the Philippines, who fought with Allied Forces in World War II and that H.R. 23 would authorize a $1,000 monthly annuity to anyone who served any time with the Merchant Marine during World War II, or to such person's survivor if the person has since died.

While we certainly do honor those individuals' wartime service, we believe there are a number of other serious inequities that should be addressed first. If approved, compensation for a single month of Merchant Marine service in World War II would exceed that of many wounded, disabled, and career military World War II combat veterans and their survivors:

A 20-year veteran who retired as an E-5 in 1955 receives $900 in retired pay.

The military pays a "Forgotten Widows" annuity of only $212 per month to widows of World War II vets who served 20-30 years and died before 1974.

The VA pays only $901 a month to vets with a 60% service-caused disability.

The House of Representatives, in the FY2008 Defense Authorization Bill, acknowledged the inequity of current law that deducts more than $1,000 a month from SBP payments to survivors of members who died of service-connected causes, but indicated it could afford only a $40 monthly payment to such widows as a first step toward reversing that penalty.

We believe strongly that Congress has a fundamental responsibility to establish relative priorities, put first things first, and ensure that there is better proportionality between compensation and service and sacrifice rendered.

As the parents of a 22-year-old disabled U.S. Army soldier who faces a lifetime of inadequate compensation for his sacrifice, we say fix the current inequities before Congress creates others.

Sincerely,

Feel free to cut & paste and send to your Congressperson (obviously, you should change the last descriptive sentence to suit your own situation.) You can find the names & addresses of Congressional Reps HERE.

h/t MOAA

Also, if you use TRICARE (if you don't know what that is, you're not affected) be sure to check out this information on POSSIBLE TRICARE DATA COMPROMISE.