Staff Sergeant Aaron White, USMC was killed in a helicopter crash on May 19, 2003 in Iraq. Here is an excerpt from his last letters home to his wife Michele and to his baby daughter Brianna.
"What keeps me up at night is thinking you may never know what you mean to me.... If I don't come home, please tell Brianna that her daddy loves her more than life....
Brianna, it breaks my heart to have to miss your first birthday. I hope that you will forgive me.... I fall asleep every night with visions of you and your mommy in my head, reminding me of all I have been blessed with. I will be with you every day, if not in body, then in spirit. I love more than my words could ever say..."
Aaron was killed two days after Brianna turned one. When an American in a military uniform is killed his or her family receives a one-time death gratuity of $12,000. The surviving family may also qualify for Survivors Benefit Plan (SBP) paid up to age 62 or until the widow remarries. SBP amounts to 55% of the soldier's retirement pay, pay that is already so low that it qualifies many military families for food stamps. These "benefits" are contingent upon fulfilling many petty regulations. Michele did not qualify for SBP because Aaron was in the Corps just under10 years service. Several further benefits, like the income-based Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC), may or may not pay out about $800 per month and $200 per child depending on the case. Michele did not qualify because of several arcane technicalities. Michele and Brianna's medical benefits will end three years from Aaron's death. However Michele did receive some modest insurance compensation because Aaron paid for coverage out of his own meager salary.
A just released study by the Rand Corporation found that the families of civilians killed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 received on average, $3.1 million in government and charitable compensation. The families of the firemen and cops who died received even more. Their average compensation exceeded $4.2 million.
Our soldiers are being killed on a daily basis but most of us seem to feel little personal connection with them. If we did their widows and families would be better compensated. Our idea of "supporting the troops" is to stick magnetic yellow ribbons on our cars. Those Americans who do not serve or do not have family serving are disconnected from our all-volunteer forces and their families. I know. I never served in the military and before my son unexpectedly enlisted in the Marines, then went to war in the Middle East for eleven months, I looked at our military as made up of people who had little to do with me.
Let's strip away our yellow ribbon sentimentality for a moment and admit the truth: we treat our military like second-class citizens. I'm glad the 9/11 families were generously compensated but it's time to ask why the family of someone who has done no more for his country than show up at a stock trading office on the wrong day should receive hundreds of times more compensation than a soldier who volunteered to leave his wife and child to defend the rest of us.
Most of the dead from our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are being buried in small towns and the blue collar or middle and lower middle class sections of our cities. Our politicians seem better able to identify with the needs of stock trader's widows (not to mention the businesses and airlines that were also generously compensated), than with the needs of the families of our soldiers. This is a scandal.
In his second to last letter home Aaron wrote: "Believe me I am not having a good time here. This is an ugly hasty land. I hope [our] people appreciate the blood we are to spill." Judging by how we are taking care of his widow and daughter apparently the answer is that we do ot.