Research - Rehabilitation - Re-Employment

Sgt. Shaft 07/14/2003

Dear Sgt. Shaft,
Thank you for providing a forum that I hope will result in a grass roots campaign needed to change a flawed and unfair law affecting our military families today. The newly enacted active duty Survivors Benefit Plan (SBP) contains a colossal and unfair inequity in comparison to the retiree SBP. Under this new law and unlike the retiree SBP, in the event of the loss of an active duty spouse and the surviving spouse eventually remarrying before the age of 55, all SBP benefits stop with no transference to the designated dependent children. Congress in creating the new SBP language apparently failed to include the selected transference of benefits to the children in the event of remarriage, as it is currently allowed in the retiree SBP. This Congressional oversight will force the loss of health care benefits and annuity payments for many eligible dependent children that the retiree plan would allow until their 18th birthday. In addition, they would lose substantial financial aid and health benefits that would be otherwise afforded them while attending college or technical school until their 22nd birthday. Another problematic transgression of this law is the fact it does not provide for special recognition and compensatory consideration for personnel with over 20 years of service, whom are retirement eligible. By changing the SBP program to an all inclusive status, spousal and children’s annuities would be fairly based and computed on rank achieved and time in grade.

I know first hand the moral and financial dilemma this inadequate law can create for surviving spouses and their children. I am a military widow who lost my husband while serving on active duty in 1993. Because my husband had over 23 years of service, under interpretation of the old SBP law I was able to pass my benefits on to our young daughter when I remarried in 1997, but subsequently lost them under this newly enacted SBP. I cannot express the emotional and economic turmoil I experienced as a result of having these significant benefits completely taken away including the loss of a planned college education for my daughter. The only consoling advice I have received from all that are in authority is to get a divorce to get the benefits back. No surviving spouse in today’s military should be put in a position of having to choose between providing for a moral cohesive family unit or the economic welfare and survivability of their children after already suffering the loss of their husband or wife in defense of this country.

Given the fact that a significant portion the now approximate 400 SBP eligible families were from 9/11 losses, every active duty military parent, must realize the clear and present danger they now face and must be concerned that the SBP promised is not the very best coverage that could be provided for their family’s security and future welfare.

The Defense Finance and Accounting Services (DFAS) and the Department of Personnel Policy and Military Compensation recognize this inequity and are presently attempting, through bureaucratic channels, to change the law. Your help is urgently needed to expedite this process by writing or contacting your Congressmen and Senators, specifically Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas, who sponsored the law. You must demand full benefits and protection for our children under the SBP umbrella. The Military Officer’s Association (MOA) and the Fleet Reserve Association (FRA) are also actively lobbying for this change and can be reached at the following numbers (703) 838-0534 or (703) 683-1400. Thank you.

Vanette M.
Fairfax, VA

Dear Vanette,
President Bush and his Administration highlight his ”no child should be left behind” program; however, this concept does not seem to apply to those children of parents who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. I urge Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) and her colleagues to immediately correct this unjust legislation. I suspect that the intent of the change in the law was not to adversely affect you and other survivors, but was an oversight, which must now be corrected, in the 108th Congress.

I also urge my readers to join the Military Officers Association and the Fleet Reserve Association by contacting their members of Congress to express their strong support for your worthwhile endeavor.

Shaft KUDOS
A high five and Semper Fi to the he Marine Corps Institute (MCI), the center for occupational training and continuing education programs within the U.S. Marine Corps, who recently completed the installation of a Pitney Bowes system that allows 24-hour turnaround on orders that used to take days or even weeks to fulfill.

The new MCI shipping system ensures that order fulfillment no longer keeps Marines in the field waiting longer than necessary, “Every order that is received, without exception, goes out the next day.”

The many duties of the Marine Corps Institute include distributing books and other printed materials all over the world, for use by Marines pursuing educational requirements and opportunities through correspondence courses and distance-learning programs. On any given day, MCI receives roughly 2,000 orders for course materials, ranging from requests for the large stacks of books used in officers’ career education programs to relatively slim “red books” detailing proper usage and care instructions for weapons and other pieces of equipment.

The new system combines Pitney Bowes’s Ascent™ shipping management software with an automated selection, sorting and conveyor system designed by Glen Road Systems, Inc. (GRSI), a Pitney Bowes alliance partner since 1996. Orders received through postal mail or the MCI Web site are fed into Ascent, which then directs the system to retrieve materials from one or both warehouse sections of the MCI post office to fulfill the order. Ascent automatically generates shipping labels for each order, and bar-code readers assist in sorting all shipments by ZIP code and in verifying that order contents are correct and complete.

Send letters to Sgt. Shaft, c/o John Fales, P.O. Box 65900, Washington, D.C. 20035-5900; fax to 301-622-3330; call 202-462-4430 or email sgtshaft@bavf.org.

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