House Addresses Death Gratuities for Military Children
On July 23, the House approved, by voice vote, a resolution (H. Con. Res. 175) addressing death gratuities for military children.
The resolution made a number of findings, including:
the death gratuity payable under [10 U.S.C. § 1477], upon the death of a member of the Armed Forces, is intended to provide funds to meet the immediate needs of the survivors of the deceased member;
such section designates the surviving spouse and any children of a deceased member as the highest and second highest priority, respectively, to receive the death gratuity payment; and
a member with a child or children, but no spouse, usually designates another individual to be responsible for that child or children and may express a desire that such individual receive the death gratuity payment on behalf of the child or children.
H. Con. Res. 175 encourages courts with fiduciary responsibility for children of deceased members of the Armed Forces to consider the expression of clear intent of the deceased members when distributing death gratuity funds on behalf of the child.
The resolution’s sponsor, Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA), stated, “There have been as many as 143 recent cases where minor children were the recipients of the death gratuity which they cannot access until reaching the age of 18. In some of these cases, such as the one involving the Jaenke family…in my district, the fallen service member left specific written instructions that part of the death gratuity be used to care for her daughter. Naval Petty Officer 2nd Class Jamie Jaenke, who was tragically killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq last summer, was survived by her 9-year-old daughter Kayla, who is being cared for by her grandparents. Kayla’s family has experienced countless financial hardships as a result of not having access to the death benefits for the purposes that Jamie intended.”Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) added, “When an American soldier makes the ultimate sacrifice, not only does our country suffer a terrible loss, but that soldier’s family suffers directly. Among many other concerns, the family faces a number of immediate financial challenges, and unfortunately, these challenges come in the midst of their grief. These financial and emotional hardships are compounded when the deceased service member was a single parent…The problem here is that Armed Forces personnel who are single parents currently have no formal way to designate, for the purposes of the death gratuity, a caretaker for their minor child in the event of the service member’s death.”
