Kristen Fenty knows a thing or two about pain and struggle.
Like all Gold Star Wives -- women whose spouses have died or been killed while on active duty in the U.S. military -- she has learned to live with the grief of losing her life partner, the disintegration of the life she imagined and, like so many war widows, the burden of instantly becoming a single parent and shepherding a child through the loss of her father.
What Kristen Fenty didn't expect was six years of getting raked over bureaucratic coals in simply trying to receive and keep the benefits to which surviving military families are entitled.
Fenty, whose husband Army Lt. Col. Joseph Fenty Jr. was killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan in 2006, is fighting just such a battle and has become an activist on behalf of other surviving military spouses grappling with a system that seems geared toward nickel and diming widows who have already sacrificed so much.
"It was a very difficult time," Fenty said of the time immediately after Joe was killed. "And I had just had a baby 28 days before my husband's death."
At issue is a byzantine parsing of government programs that essentially eliminates one survivor's benefit for another, despite the distinct purpose of each and their origin in entirely separate entities. Specifically, Fenty and Gold Star Wives are fighting a government practice that offsets payments from the Defense Department's Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) -- a survivor benefit collected through death in service or purchased through post-retirement premium payments -- with the Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) death benefit, paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs to spouses who have lost a husband or wife at war.
What Fenty and so many others have discovered is that, according to the U.S. government, receiving payments from both programs constitutes a kind of double-dipping and that a dollar-for-dollar offset must take place to prevent that.
To civilians, this is analogous to someone telling us after losing our spouse that we can have his or her retirement money or their life insurance -- but not both. Of course, this would be considered an outrage and an earned-benefits rip-off, but for military families, this evidently makes complete sense to the government.
About 60,000 Americans are eligible for both benefits and many are affected by these offsets, which are sadly known as the 'Widow's Tax."
"It's very hard for the military community to look at survivors," said Fenty, who lives in Virginia with her 6-year-old daughter. "And the attitude might be, 'well, this person's grief-stricken and feels like they're not getting what they should get' -- and they aren't because they don't have their spouse."
"I don't think folks realize that it is a very real situation for the surviving families. It is an injustice and an insult and in no way says that we honor the service of the dead."
And the ramifications of this income being in peril go off in many directions including often leaving the surviving spouse with no retirement money whatsoever. As Fenty points out, the many times that military families move limits the extent to which the civilian spouse can stay employed at the same company, grow their career and achieve a separate retirement nest egg.
"I moved 16 times in 19 years," she said. "I'm a professional with two master's degrees. I'm not the typical, but I had to bottom-rung my employment every time I moved. Nobody's earning a retirement or getting vested in a plan when you're moving around that often. So your spouse's retirement is your retirement."
Fenty first became aware that this was going to be an unexpected financial problem for her "immediately ... within a few weeks" of her husband's death. And while dealing with the reality of ongoing finances is not uncommon among people who have lost a spouse in any walk of life, what made Fenty's situation especially stressful was being forced to make financial decisions with a lifelong impact very quickly after the shock of her husband's death.
"You're talking to a widow who has just lost her spouse and you're asking me to make immediate decisions that are going to impact my financial future and my ability raise my child."
Fenty and Gold Star Wives have been active in Washington, including a two-day "Color The Hill Gold" trip to Capitol Hill last month to urge lawmakers to support pending legislation in both houses of Congress that would end the offsets. Those bills, S. 260 in the Senate and H.R. 178 in the House, would eliminate the Widow's Tax and other unfair financial hardships on surviving military families.
So, while the issue is certainly not being ignored entirely by Congress, it's difficult to describe the action being taken as anything but tepid, despite the fact that a strong bipartisan coalition of people usually at odds over almost everything agrees that a change is necessary.
"This is a matter of simple fairness," said Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), an initial cosponsor of the Senate bill introduced by Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) last year. "Military retirees pay for the Survivor Benefit Plan with their premiums and for Dependency and Indemnity Compensation with their lives. If they do both, it is grossly unfair to penalize their survivors."
The people who agree that these bills should pass illustrate the sheer magnitude of what a legislative no-brainer this should be. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) -- one of the Senate's most conservative members and someone inclined to disagree with Boxer on everything from climate change to what day of the week it is -- also strongly supports eliminating the offsets.
"The spouses and dependents who survive our warriors have earned every penny and should receive the full value of SBP and DIC without any offset," Inhofe said when endorsing the Senate bill in 2011. "Military families continue to make incredible sacrifices on behalf of our nation's freedom and it is time we give back these benefits."
And Republican Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina, who introduced the House version of the legislation, said the government needs to respect the wishes of troops killed in action and see that their families are taken care of in accordance with the benefits selected.
"Military members make necessary arrangements for their spouses to be taken care of in the event of their death," Wilson said. "We owe it to these fallen heroes to carry out their wishes and to ensure their expectations are fully met."
Despite the broad bipartisan group supporting these bills -- there are 188 cosponsors in the House and 50 in the Senate -- the legislation appears mired in committee in both legislative bodies and is getting little or no action.
"It's been introduced with every Congress, I think, at least 10 years back now," Fenty said. "There have been times where there were over 300 cosponsors and still it was not pushed through."
Though it is popular to support all Veterans programs making their way through Congress, the political advantage in a big election year is cutting spending and, especially among Republicans, avoiding like the plague any initiatives that increase spending. It is an ugly political calculus taking into account that, in absolute numbers, the families of our war dead represent a relatively small constituency.
"We're a very easy group to put to the side. We aren't the constituents of the military advocacy groups," Fenty said.
And the strain on widows like Kristen Fenty is exactly what one would think -- horrible and not being helped by a slow and painful battle to receive earned benefits.
"It's infuriating to think that something my husband earned is not going to his family," she said. "It demeans his service. It adds to the anguish about whether you're making the right decisions and it adds to the terrible thought process of 'if only.' If only my life was the way I thought it was supposed to be -- well, it isn't"
Fenty says that her biggest dollar loss has been not so much in missed benefits but in the additional taxes she's had to pay for years based on the offset rules and estimates that the Widow's Tax has cost her roughly $45,000.
While Fenty takes some solace in the many commemorations on behalf of her husband -- Fenty Hall at New York's Fort Drum was named after Joe in 2008 and a classroom in his name will be dedicated at Fort Benning in Georgia this summer -- they don't take the sting out of the ongoing battle her family and others are waging to simply get the benefits their war dead have earned.
"Several places have been named after Joe," she said. "But not every soldier has a hall or a building named after them and they have all earned a portion of a retirement and that ought to be paid to honor their service."
It's a difficult balance, this fighting for what's right, for one benefit earned by Joe's toil and the other by his blood and struggling for the equilibrium that best serves her husband's memory and her life, here and now. And then there's the part that's just for her and her little girl, the healing, finding calm and moving on that must take place. Kristen Fenty has found that while she still has the fire in her to hound legislators and mobilize others to action, she also realizes there will be a finite amount she can do and her life must be about something larger. She needs to find peace for her and a young child, who never met her father and was born less than a month before his death.
"I think that between three and five years is when young survivors typically turn away from advocacy," Fenty said with a sigh. "Not because it doesn't kill them that it's not getting changed but because it is killing them that it's not getting changed."
"I've hit a point where I can suffer over what we don't have or be joyful in what I do have. I have to put my eyes on what's important in this life and that's having the best life I can with my daughter."
Please make your voice heard with your Congressional representatives on this issue. You can visit the Two Widows Walking Tall blog to read more and go here to easily let your House Representative know that you support ending the Widow's Tax.
Gale S. Pollock: Her Service and Sacrifice Demand Fairness and Equal Treatment From Congress
Kevin O'Brien: America Comes Together to Support Military Families with Joining Forces Initiative
I am also a military widow troubled by the SBP/DIC offset. There is ONE DoD military retirement trust fund from which ONE survivor benefit is paid to military surviving spouses. A Casualty Assistance Officer who does not seem to be aware of PL 107-107 worries me…a change in law providing active duty surviving spouses with eligibility for the Survivor Benefit…introduced about 1 week following 9/11. The Active Duty deceased service member was determined by Congress to be officially retired with 100% disability on the date of the members death.
Public Law 107-107 S. 1432 December 28, 2001
SEC. 642. SURVIVOR BENEFIT PLAN ANNUITIES FOR SURVIVING SPOUSES OF MEMBERS WHO DIE WHILE ON ACTIVE DUTY AND NOT ELIGIBLE FOR RETIREMENT.
Am I to believe that you expect your EARNED retired pay, yet another soldier who suffered the misfortune of disability or death did not EARN his same retired pay?, simply because he died? It is a time honored tradition in this country to "work" for a living...why then is military retired pay earned by working replaced by VA disability payments? Based on this logic, the retired pay of non-disabled military retirees might be reduced by their post retirement income from other jobs? This cost of war to the average American family is about a one time payment of $24. [www.washingtonwatch.com]
Please try to see the larger principles of equitable value for equal work..
3. Even civilian law cuts off alimony or child support when someone remarries or a child comes of age. Why would we expect that the military should keep paying a spouse after she/he becomes the spouse of someone else?
4. Before it’s all said and done that family will receive well over a few million dollars in benefits (insurance, death gratuity, health care, education, SBP, DIC, SSI, housing and transportation). I’m not saying that the money will replace her husband, but don’t we need to wonder just how much is enough? And how much are we willing to pay?
Now before you go all twisted on me for being a bit unsympathetic to her plight consider this; I’m a life-long Dem (Been voting that way is I was 18, I’m 52 now). I’ve been a Soldier for about 30+ years and I’ve been working with the Army Casualty team for about 4 years and those people take their job very, very seriously. (If you haven’t seen it, rent the movie ‘Taking Chance’ but be ready to cry if you do.)
Peace be with you all.
Serine
>There are no premiums collected for Active duty SBP
Which makes SBP an earned benefit of active military duty. If Walmart created SBP and paid the premium of its employees, it would be an earned benefit. So what?
>Heck she would have had no offset at all if she had chosen to give all the DIC to her child.
But . . . the child then gets taxed at AMT rates and the benefit expires at adulthood. This is not a pension—it's a slap in the face.
> Even civilian law cuts off alimony or child support when someone remarries or a child comes of age.
Divorce: volitional. Getting killed by an IED or whatnot and having your widow lose a big fat chunk of your pension: not volitional. Something here: not like the other.
> I’m not saying that the money will replace her husband . . .
Really?
>…but don’t we need to wonder just how much is enough?
I love the Internet. The people are anonymous, but their character comes through. Apparently here is an opportunity to save some coin. Had Col. Fenty lived, our government would own him his pension. But Fenty died heroically upon the battlefield, and now there is an opportunity to save some silver pieces by paying his widow less than he earned—and less than she deserves.
Worse, this is put forth by someone who claims that they wear the uniform. Too bad we can’t cut their pension.
Before we get ourselves in a tizzy. We might want to look a bit closer at this. First, there are a few facts that have been misrepresented here mostly because Mr Geiger only got one side of this story.
Since Mrs. Fenty's husband was in the army, Mr. Geiger should have contacted the Casualty and Mortuary Affairs Operation Center (CMAOC) or the office of the Casualty Mortuary Affairs Branch (CMAB). He could have also contacted the Mrs. Fenty's servicing Casualty Assistance Center (CAC). Each military post has one.
Any of these offices could have given him more information about how these benefits actually work. For instance:
1. There are no premiums collected for Active duty SBP (Survivor Benefits Program). Which is the program used to provide funds to spouses and children of soldiers who die while on active duty or within 120 days of leaving the military or retiring. (One should think of this more along the lines of alimony or support payments in this case, not insurance).
2. Unless a retiree/Vet is within 120 days of leaving the service, Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) is not always paid unless there is a proven need presented to the Veterans Administration. Heck she would have had no offset at all if she had chosen to give all the DIC to her child.
I know Kristen Fenty and her six-year-old daughter Lauren. Lauren goes to the same school as my fiancée's daughter, who is also a Gold Star Child. I recently took the girls out for dinner and we were innocently playing a 'what crazy thing would you wish for' game.
After wishing for a pet dragon and other sundry silliness, the game took a more serious turn: Lauren simply wished that she could see her father, and my future stepdaughter quietly agreed.
No tears—no overt sadness even—just a present longing for something that can never be.
And our nation denies these children a benefit that their fathers' paid for with their lives. It is sickening, morally wrong, and a black mark upon the soul of our people.
Thanks to Bob Geiger for staying on top of this.