Pentagon says charity will pay military death benefits, amid outrage over cut-off

reply to post by Connman


Good point, but dare we say there is a lawyer that has the cajones to stand up and defend them??? That's the problem as well, justice only works for those wealthy enough to afford buying it..........

reply to post by Zaphod58


Soldiers pay $28 dollars a month on average for their SGLI coverage. Where does the blame lie in this case?

The White House?
The Senate?
The House of Reps?
Prudential Insurance Company?

I cannot understand why the insurance isn't paying out due to a shut down. What happened to the hundreds of millions of dollars Prudential has collected over the 34 years they have had this contract?

On Topic EDIT = What I read said the 100k "gratuity" that is given with 72 hours is not going out during the shutdown. That is separate from the 450k insurance policy almost all soldiers carry. Did the pentagon say ALL of it is suspended or just the extra 100K?

IMHO, whoever holds the strings of the purse holds the biggest part of the blame. And taking it one step further, there is no way they can look me in the face and tell me they weren't aware of what the consequences would be when they started this game. People are suffering left and right because of their stupidity while they live the life of luxury. Each and everyone of them should resign and let some real Americans take over and address what ails our country in a mature way.


Totally Pissed

reply to post by 200Plus


That I'm not sure about. I've been driving most of the day and haven't had time to really dig into this and find out all the particulars.

reply to post by jam321


I agree. I think they were aware of what the consequences would be well before this started. And every time I see a politician getting face time for any of this nonsense I want to scream!

Well one thing is for damned sure, IT'S DEMORALIZING to my battles down range.

Your pretty much saying, srgt! your saying that if I go on this patrol and we go boom, my family isn't getting anything because of this shutdown???

That's what's being ask right now downrange. I'm pretty sure the commanders themselves are sympathetic about this too, but a mission is a mission and the American people have seen this and they know this.

I'm surprised I haven't heard reports of soldier disobeying orders to go out on these deadly patrols, seeing as some of them are doing this for there families....couple of 11B's I know could care less as they sign anybody for that SGLI...

It is not the Pentagon. They did not have the funding and did not have the authority to keep making the payments. The Defense Secretary said a charity said it would step in to make the payments. Ridiculous.

The president signed a bill to allow the funding to continue based on a vote this evening. The funding was cut off last week when Obama signed another law funding the military payroll but not including death benefits.

So, in other words, he who took it away gave it back like a selfish child with a someone elses favorite toy.



and this gem...

link

I have searched and searched and all I have found is that it is the 100K "death gratuity" paid prior to the insurance 450K being paid out.

While I am saddened by this happening, I understand it too. If we are broke then free money has to stop going out. They did not stop the SGLI payments only the initial 100K given to survivors by the government.

As much as I hate to say this: I don't have a issue with this. I wouldn't have had an issue with it while serving and I don't have an issue with it as a retiree.

However if it comes out that the SGLI payments were stopped, then all bets are off.

I'm of the mind that because our country was built upon charitable organizations, if the feds got out of (what's in my opinion) the charity business and handed things over to the private sector, that would be for the best.
Not saying such a transition wouldn't suck for a while, but still...