The vice chiefs of the armed forces have given a frosty reception to a Defense Department plan that would raise the military’s $12,400 death gratuity to $100,000, but only for survivors of service members who die in combat areas.
In testimony Feb. 1 before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the second-highest ranking officers of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps united behind higher death benefits, but opposed an unprecedented move to create a two-tiered payment plan.
Testifying alongside the vice chiefs was David Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, who, along with Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., had devised the controversial plan.
“I firmly believe that we would do great harm to our servicemen and women … were we to make such distinctions in one’s service,” said Gen. William Nyland, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps.
It would be wrong, Nyland suggested, to pay more to a family because their service member died in Iraq instead of while training for war or in an accident resulting from “a late night at the club trying to come to grips with what he may have seen over there.”
The death benefit plan that Chu unveiled matched the major features Sessions discussed three weeks ago in describing his HEROES (Honoring Every Requirement of Exemplary Service) Act of 2005, with he co-sponsored with Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. It would raise maximum coverage under Servicemembers Group Life Insurance by $150,000, to $400,000, and the government would pay premiums on that additional $150,000 of coverage for all members assigned to combat areas.
Also, the $12,400 death gratuity would jump to $100,000, but only for deaths that occur in combat areas.
The changes would be retroactive to October 2001 to help survivors of 1,500 service members who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq. It would raise their death benefit package by $238,000.
But higher death pay, said Adm. John Nathman, vice chief of naval operations, “shouldn’t be just for those … in designated geographic areas.”
“I agree with my comrades here. We discussed it at length,” Gen. Richard Cody, Army vice chief of staff, told senators. The issue is “service to this country. … We need to be very, very careful about making this $100,000 decision based upon what action was performed.”
Sessions estimated the fiscal year 2006 cost of the death package he worked out with Chu at $456 million, most of that attributed to the retroactive payments. If applied to all active duty deaths since Oct. 7, 2001, another 3,000 families would see death benefits climb by $238,000. So the cost of the Sessions-Lieberman bill’s retroactivity feature alone would rise from $350 million to more than $1.1 billion.
Chu declined to embrace the vice chiefs’ position. But an alternative bill, S 42, from Sens. George Allen, R-Va. and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., seemed to gain favor with other senators. It also would raise the death gratuity to $100,000, but for any death, not just those in combat areas. Allen called the current $12,400 “a paltry, miserly and, in my view, insulting amount.”
His bill would raise the ceiling on Servicemembers Group Life Insurance only to $300,000, and that additional $50,000 in coverage could occur without any increase in premiums.
Robert Epley, a senior Veteran Affairs Department official, testified that raising the maximum insurance to $400,000, as the administration and Sessions propose, would either force an increase in the premium rate of 6.5 cents a month per $1,000 coverage, or force the government to begin subsidizing the program.
To comment, write Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120-1111, e-mail milupdate@aol.com or go to www.militaryupdate.com.
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