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REPUBLICAN PRESS RELEASE

April 24, 2007

Lamborn champions Colorado veterans’ cemetery and examines troubled survivor benefits

By Jeff Phillips, For more information, contact (202) 225-3527

Washington D.C. — The Disability and Memorial Affairs Subcommittee of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs marked up a bill today that would provide a national cemetery in southern Colorado and held an oversight hearing on benefits to survivors of deceased servicemembers.

H.R. 1660, offered by John Salazar (D-Colo.), and bearing an amendment offered by the subcommittee’s ranking member, Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), specifically authorizes the construction in the state’s El Paso County .

El Paso County is the largest county in Colorado and is home to approximately 100,000 veterans. Southern Colorado is home to more than 150,000 veterans, and that population is expanding rapidly.

“This is a great day for all Colorado veterans,” Lamborn said. “Currently, families of veterans from this region have to drive several hours to Ft. Logan in Denver if they want to honor their loved ones at a national cemetery.”

With the establishment of this new National Cemetery , families will have a much shorter and easier commute. “This is an important, bipartisan bill and I urge Chairman Filner to pass the bill out of the full committee without further delay,” Lamborn said.

Testimony regarding survivor benefits, at times wrenchingly painful, was offered during the subsequent oversight hearing by families of deceased servicemembers and family advocates. Susan Jaenke, of Iowa, is now caring for the daughter of her own daughter, Jaime, a Navy corpsman, who was killed in . Jaenke spoke of discourteous, unhelpful personnel at the Navy’s Millington, Tenn. , support facility who lost documents and delayed her daughter’s casework.

Matthew B. Heavrin of Redlands, Calif., described how his daughter, Hannah, was killed in , and because of the way her Servicemembers Group Life Insurance and indemnity compensation policies were written, her husband became the sole beneficiary. A son she has from a previous relationship receives nothing. As troubling, her current husband has done nothing to help support the child, leaving Heavrin and his wife to support the child without assistance.

Rose Lee, government relations chair of the Gold Star Wives of America, testified regarding the need to eliminate the current offset between DoD’s survivor benefit plan and VA’s dependency and indemnity compensation. The former, a taxable, premium-based survivor benefit, is reduced by the amount a survivor is awarded the latter, a tax-free death compensation for the surviving family. Survivors of lower ranking servicemembers, whose SBP is indexed to their base pay, may end up with no SBP because of this offset.

Gold Star Wives and other advocates also called for regional survivors offices which would coordinate federal benefits for families which have experienced the loss of a loved one.

“It is left to the various representatives of these organizations [such as DoD and VA] to do their best to inform, assist, and support the family member in their time of need,” said Gold Star Wives representative and war widow Kimberly Hazelgrove, herself a veteran.

“When a servicemember dies the emotional demands that descend onto their loved ones are immense, and we have a sacred responsibility to help them bear that burden,” said Lamborn.

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Larry Scott

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