Admiral Ackbar
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From Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post:
Behind closed doors at the Ft. Hood army base on Tuesday, President Bush got an earful from some Iraq-war widows, who told him that the way the government is treating them is disgraceful.
"I just told him it was very wrong," one of the widows, Linnie Blankenbecler, 47, told me yesterday. "I was not intimidated by the president. My hardest reality was the death of my husband."
Bush spent more than three hours Tuesday meeting with 33 families of soldiers who died in Iraq. But the meetings were closed to the press and the White House only released sketchy details about what his interactions were like. (See yesterday's column.)
Blankenbecler had told the local paper, the Killeen Daily Herald, that she was planning to talk to the president about survivor benefits. So I called her up to find out how it went.
Blankenbecler's husband, Command Sgt. Maj. James Blankenbecler, died on Oct. 1, 2003, after his convoy came under attack in Samara, Iraq. Here's one of his many memorial pages on the Web. His voice is still on his family's answering machine.
Linnie Blankenbecler told me she is, and remains, a Bush supporter. She said she doesn't blame him either for the war or for the stinginess with which the government is remunerating survivors.
But she told him in no uncertain terms that he needed to make things better.
"I love the U. S. and I am proud of the way my husband died, but I think the way they are treating the families now is a disgrace to my husband and what he believed," she said.
There are two primary ways in which survivors of military personnel killed in action receive benefits: The Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP), which is based on time and service, and Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC), which provides a flat monthly payment for two years after a service-connected death.
Blankenbecler is most upset about two things.
One is the rule that widows call the SBP-DIC offset, which actually takes away a dollar from one benefit for every dollar they get in the other.
"It's disgusting," Blankenbecler said.
The second is a provision in a bill Bush signed in December 2003 that added an extra $250 per dependent child to the DIC payment. But widows whose husbands died before the effective date -- Jan. 1, 2005 -- saw little or nothing of that benefit.
Blankenbecler said that's grossly unfair.
"I told him I was very disappointed that he would sign something like that," she said. "I know that he doesn't understand everything that he signs, completely. So he asked one of his aides if he knew which bill I was talking about, and he told the guy to check into that.
"And he said he was sorry that I was disappointed, and that there's so many bills out there. I just got the impression that he didn't know which one I was talking about, and he probably didn't realize what he had done."
All in all, talking to the president on Tuesday helped, Blankenbecler said.
"The first thing he did was he told me he was sorry for the loss of my husband. For a year and a half, I had been wanting him to tell me that he was sorry -- not that I was holding him responsible in any way, but I was wanting to hear those words from him."
What was important, she said, was "just that he acknowledge that it happened, and that it has happened to 1,500 families. And I wanted him to tell me that personally, that he was sorry for my loss, and acknowledge that my husband was not just a number."
On that front, Blankenbecler declared herself satisfied.
"He's a very touchy, personable sort of president," she said, by "touchy" meaning "he's real free to kiss your cheek, to kiss your forehead, to hold your hand. He's just very, very charming, and I thought very compassionate."
Blankenbecler came with her daughter Jessica, 15, who wrote an e-mail to her father, titled "Hi, Daddy," two days after he died. The e-mail was recently reprinted in the book, "Chicken Soup for the Military Wife's Soul."
Bush hugged her daughter. Her daughter presented the president with a copy of the book. And Bush gave her a presidential pin.
Blankenbecler said Bush acknowledged that she wasn't the first person who had complained to him about benefits on Tuesday. "We have a widows' support group on Ft. Hood," she said. "We all have the same issues."
Blankenbecler said she believed that all the survivor families who still live in the area were invited to meet with Bush. In all, Fort Hood has lost 146 soldiers in Iraq.
And Blankenbecler said she thinks some of the other widows, unlike her, are opposed to the war. "I believe it was the right thing to do, my husband believed it was the right thing to do," she said.
But Blankenbecler said she didn't know if any of them expressed their views to the president.
Behind closed doors at the Ft. Hood army base on Tuesday, President Bush got an earful from some Iraq-war widows, who told him that the way the government is treating them is disgraceful.
"I just told him it was very wrong," one of the widows, Linnie Blankenbecler, 47, told me yesterday. "I was not intimidated by the president. My hardest reality was the death of my husband."
Bush spent more than three hours Tuesday meeting with 33 families of soldiers who died in Iraq. But the meetings were closed to the press and the White House only released sketchy details about what his interactions were like. (See yesterday's column.)
Blankenbecler had told the local paper, the Killeen Daily Herald, that she was planning to talk to the president about survivor benefits. So I called her up to find out how it went.
Blankenbecler's husband, Command Sgt. Maj. James Blankenbecler, died on Oct. 1, 2003, after his convoy came under attack in Samara, Iraq. Here's one of his many memorial pages on the Web. His voice is still on his family's answering machine.
Linnie Blankenbecler told me she is, and remains, a Bush supporter. She said she doesn't blame him either for the war or for the stinginess with which the government is remunerating survivors.
But she told him in no uncertain terms that he needed to make things better.
"I love the U. S. and I am proud of the way my husband died, but I think the way they are treating the families now is a disgrace to my husband and what he believed," she said.
There are two primary ways in which survivors of military personnel killed in action receive benefits: The Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP), which is based on time and service, and Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC), which provides a flat monthly payment for two years after a service-connected death.
Blankenbecler is most upset about two things.
One is the rule that widows call the SBP-DIC offset, which actually takes away a dollar from one benefit for every dollar they get in the other.
"It's disgusting," Blankenbecler said.
The second is a provision in a bill Bush signed in December 2003 that added an extra $250 per dependent child to the DIC payment. But widows whose husbands died before the effective date -- Jan. 1, 2005 -- saw little or nothing of that benefit.
Blankenbecler said that's grossly unfair.
"I told him I was very disappointed that he would sign something like that," she said. "I know that he doesn't understand everything that he signs, completely. So he asked one of his aides if he knew which bill I was talking about, and he told the guy to check into that.
"And he said he was sorry that I was disappointed, and that there's so many bills out there. I just got the impression that he didn't know which one I was talking about, and he probably didn't realize what he had done."
All in all, talking to the president on Tuesday helped, Blankenbecler said.
"The first thing he did was he told me he was sorry for the loss of my husband. For a year and a half, I had been wanting him to tell me that he was sorry -- not that I was holding him responsible in any way, but I was wanting to hear those words from him."
What was important, she said, was "just that he acknowledge that it happened, and that it has happened to 1,500 families. And I wanted him to tell me that personally, that he was sorry for my loss, and acknowledge that my husband was not just a number."
On that front, Blankenbecler declared herself satisfied.
"He's a very touchy, personable sort of president," she said, by "touchy" meaning "he's real free to kiss your cheek, to kiss your forehead, to hold your hand. He's just very, very charming, and I thought very compassionate."
Blankenbecler came with her daughter Jessica, 15, who wrote an e-mail to her father, titled "Hi, Daddy," two days after he died. The e-mail was recently reprinted in the book, "Chicken Soup for the Military Wife's Soul."
Bush hugged her daughter. Her daughter presented the president with a copy of the book. And Bush gave her a presidential pin.
Blankenbecler said Bush acknowledged that she wasn't the first person who had complained to him about benefits on Tuesday. "We have a widows' support group on Ft. Hood," she said. "We all have the same issues."
Blankenbecler said she believed that all the survivor families who still live in the area were invited to meet with Bush. In all, Fort Hood has lost 146 soldiers in Iraq.
And Blankenbecler said she thinks some of the other widows, unlike her, are opposed to the war. "I believe it was the right thing to do, my husband believed it was the right thing to do," she said.
But Blankenbecler said she didn't know if any of them expressed their views to the president.
