Battle of the Bilge

Background

One of the most common reactions to the ongoing reports of potential cuts to defense spending since the August debt agreement has been ‘Cut Congressional benefits first’. These comments are usually accompanied by a list of statements regarding Congressional pensions, raises and health benefits. However, the information that is presented in the reactions is rarely accurate and sometimes misleading. In the January 13th edition of MOAA’s Legislative Update, some of the more widely discussed items are evaluated.

That portion of the update, written by Legislative Issues Manager Matt Murphy, is presented below.

Fact or Fiction: Congressional Benefits

Approval ratings for Congress are at a historic low, and our members often ask us what sort of benefits legislators enjoy.

The following information isn’t presented to defend Congressional perks, but only to dispel some myths that perpetually float around the internet. If we’re to have credibility defending military programs, we need to have our facts right.

1) Members of Congress get full pensions for life after serving just one term.

Mostly Fiction. The Congressional retirement system is very similar to that of federal civilians. It’s true that a member of Congress can become eligible for retirement benefits after a minimum of 5 years of service if they’re age 62 or older, but only for a partial pension.

To qualify for a pension a member of Congress must meet one of the following service and age requirements:

5 years of service and age 62
20 years of service and age 50
25 years of service at any age

Like the military retirement system, Congressional retirement pay is calculated on a combination of their average high-three years of salary and a multiplier based on their length of service.

It’s also worth pointing out that members of Congress contribute to their own retirement and pay Social Security taxes. Once retired their Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) are sometimes held artificially below the Consumer Price Index (CPI) which measures inflation.

Since the Congressional retirement system was overhauled in 1984 (to be less generous) the average annual pension is roughly $40,000.

2) Members of Congress don’t pay for their healthcare.

Fiction. Members of Congress and their staffs are eligible for the same health insurance as federal civilians, and they pay the same premiums. They can enroll in any insurance program offered under the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP).

One of the most popular plans under FEHBP (the Blue Cross Blue Shield Standard plan) costs beneficiaries $430 a month for a family, and $185 a month for individual coverage.

Starting in 2014, members of Congress and their staffs will be required to participate in the health care exchanges created under national health care reform.

3) Legislators receive free health care at military facilities such as Walter Reed.

Fiction. Members of Congress can receive care at the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, but the cost of such care is billed to their federal insurance.

4) Congress votes themselves pay increases every year.

Mostly Fiction. The law authorizes Congress a raise every year unless legislators vote to stop it.

Congress voted to forgo a pay raise in 2010, 2011, and 2012. Congressional pay increases are capped lower than the military raise. While military raises are tied to the average American’s (the Employment Cost Index), congressional raises are capped one-half percentage point below that.

In 2012 members of Congress will collect a salary of $174,000 (Congressional leaders receive more).

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Update on Email Rumor

Last week, we brought you the viral email regarding a change in the language when a survivor is presented the flag at a military funeral. The rumor stated that the White House had changed the protocol to remove the words ‘On behalf of the President of the United States’.

At the time of that posting, we brought the issue up with DVA’s National Cemetery Program for review. The VA was initially unaware of this specific issue, they discussed it and responded.

Response from the Department of Veterans Affairs

The following was related to MOAA from James Flanagan, Program Manager for Presidential Memorial Certificates at the National Cemetery Administration (please note that the NCA is not responsible for regulations of the recitation – that comes from the Department of Defense):

“[Y]our inquiry also questioned the burial ceremony recitation by the different branches of the military in presenting a burial flag to the family or loved one of a deceased veteran, with some research and considerable discussion the National Cemetery Administration is now sharing these (your) concerns across our system and staff. We feel that the guidance below is appropriate to the needs outlined in your inquiry and we hope that this response will assist you in addressing the questions from your membership accordingly.

While military funeral honors often are presented at National Cemeteries, the Department of Defense (DOD) is responsible for providing military funeral honors. Each individual branch of the Armed Forces may establish its own protocol, typically issued in the service’s policy manual. This includes guidance on the statement to be recited when presenting a burial flag to the next of kin. When a VA national cemetery representative presents the burial flag to the next of kin in lieu of a member of a military honor guard, they use these words: “This flag is presented on behalf of a grateful Nation, as a token of appreciation for the honorable and faithful service rendered by your loved one.”

While there may be some variations at the unit level in reciting the appropriate verbiage, neither the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, nor any branch of the military have published or directed any recent change to the recitation for presenting a burial flag to the loved one of a deceased veteran.

The military funeral honors website is located at www.militaryfuneralhonors.osd.mil.

Questions or comments concerning the DOD military funeral honors program may be sent to the address listed below:

Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense For Public Affairs
Community Relations and Public Liaison
1400 Defense Pentagon, Room 2D982
Washington, DC 20301-1400
Phone: 703-571-3343
(emphasis added by author)

Additionally, Mr. Flanagan gave information regarding the Presidential Memorial Certificate Program (PMC):

“[E]very Presidential Memorial Certificate that is mailed to a family member or loved one of a deceased veteran contains the signature of the President of the United States. The PMC program continues to be a White House program that is exclusively administered by the Department of Veterans affairs. It is truly unfortunate that a message is circulating in any form or in any medium that suggests otherwise.

If you would like to read more about the Presidential Memorial Certificates I would always encourage you or any of your membership to visit our web site at http://www.cem.va.gov/pmc.asp

MOAA appreciates the efforts of Mr. Flanagan to help us raise awareness on this issue and hopefully put the rumor to bed.

~~~~~

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Background

A story about the White House changing the military funeral protocols for the presentation of the American flag to survivors has gained a good deal of traction in recent weeks. The email, a variation of which is shown below, states that the statement made by the soldier to the recipient of the flag has been changed to remove mention of the President of the United States and replaced with ‘Secretary of Defense’. However, there has been no change in policy regarding funeral protocols and the separate services maintain their own version of the presentation statement.

Email Iteration

As I’m sure you have witnessed during military funerals, a soldier bends to one knee and recites a scripted message to a surviving relative that begins ‘On behalf of the President of the United States and a grateful nation, I wish to present you with this flag in appreciation for your husband’s service …’.

However, today the dialogue was ‘On behalf of the Secretary of Defense and a grateful nation …’ After the service I approached the soldier who presented the flag to my aunt to inquire about the change in language. His response was “The White House notified all military funeral service detachments to immediately remove ‘the President’ and insert ‘the Secretary of Defense’.

I couldn’t believe what I heard and the soldier smiled and said “You can draw your own conclusion sir but that was the order”. He, too, was ashamed of what he was required to say. This president has taken off the gloves. My only response to this endless cesspool of Anti-American rhetoric dripping from his mouth is to borrow a phrase (with one minor change) uttered by another temporary Washington resident living in government housing: “Today for the first time in my adult life I was ASHAMED of my country”

Analysis

The presentation of the flag and the accompanying statement from the service varies by service. They are as listed below:

United States Army: On behalf of the President of the United States and the people of a grateful nation, may I present this flag as a token of appreciation for the honorable and faithful service your loved one rendered this nation.

United States Navy: On behalf of the President of the United States and the Chief of Naval Operations, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one’s service to this Country and a grateful Navy.

United States Marines Corps: On behalf of the President of the United States, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one’s service to Country and Corps.

United States Air Force: On behalf of the President of the United States, the Department of the Air Force, and a grateful nation, we offer this flag for the faithful and dedicated service of (Service member’s rank and name).

United States Coast Guard: On behalf of the President of the United States, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one’s service to Country and the Coast Guard.

Military funeral protocols are spelled out in law under U.S. Code, Title 10, Chapter 75, Section 1491, last revised in January 2007. But the code only governs who receives the flag at the presentation. The statement made is left up to the services and according to each source contacted, there has not been any modification of their tradition.

TruthorFiction.com goes into more details about the origin of this rumor and also confirms with US Army Public Affairs that there has been no official changes to protocol.

Part 2

This article continues here.

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Please Note: MOAA has established a single landing page for the retirement proposal here: http://www.moaa.org/retirementcuts

Controversial Proposal

In July of 2011, the Defense Business Board presented a revamping of the military retirement structure, based in large part on the findings of the Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation of 2010. The proposal has been met with serious concern and strong opposition by MOAA and other organizations. In simple terms, the proposal would do away with the 20 year service pension plan currently in operation and replace it with a 401k style savings plan that would start at the beginning of a serviceman’s career. We believe that the proposed changes both significantly devalue core career incentives and would harm recruitment and retention efforts. Anyone familiar with the REDUX program, which was so detrimental that it was significantly altered in 2000 and now is offered as an alternative choice of retirement options, can see how this program would play out.

For a look at what the DBB proposed, click here.

MOAA’s Response

MOAA has written about the retirement overhaul proposal several times. From the July 29th Legislative Update:

“MOAA believes the QRMC plan would do grave damage to long-term retention and readiness. By dramatically reducing its financial commitments to servicemembers without any reduction in the enormous sacrifices demanded of career troops and families, it would destroy the sense of reciprocal commitment between member and service.”

From the August 12th Legislative Update:

“The new retirement reform proposals usually envision even more severe cutbacks of guaranteed retired pay amounts, relying more on a contributory Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) system under which services would contribute varying amounts each year depending on service needs for particular skills. Under that system, full retired pay wouldn’t start until age 57 and TSP withdrawals wouldn’t start until age 60.

Just as the Redux cut was applied prospectively (that is, only to people who entered service after the retirement law was changed), most who have endorsed major retirement changes envision applying the new rules only to new entrants.

But a recent retirement task force briefing to the Defense Business Board called that a “high-cost option.” It also highlighted a “lower-cost option” under which all current members would be converted to the new system as of a specific date — grandfathering only service already rendered as of that date.

It’s not clear exactly how that might work. A person with 20 years of service as of the conversion date might have future retired pay capped at 50% of high-three-year average basic pay, even if he or she served another 10 years, with subsequent service earning only some level of TSP deposits. A person with 10 years as of the conversion date who went on to complete a career might end up drawing retired pay capped at 25% of high-three-year average basic pay.

But this is only speculation, because no details or decisions have been offered yet.”

It is important to note that the DBB proposal is not the new law, and will only be one of the many possible options that DoD and Congress consider in the coming months and year. But with the debt talks that are ongoing and the requirements of automatic defense reductions that were written into the recently passed debt ceiling deal on the table, retirement benefits are in dangerous territory.

To help illuminate the dangers and inform the public of what is happening with the retirement discussions, MOAA’s Director of Government Relations, Col Steve Strobridge, USAF (Ret.), fielded questions in an interview with the Washington Post on August 11th, and produced the video that you can view below.

In Focus: Retirement Reform from MOAA on Vimeo.

You Can Help

What can you do?

1 – Send your elected officials a MOAA-suggested message urging them to ensure that ongoing budget-cutting efforts don’t undermine the core pillars that are essential to sustaining a high-quality all-volunteer force.

2 – Urge all of your friends and relatives to do the same.

Stolen Valor

The arrest of William G. Hillar in January has brought the issue of impersonating an officer into the national spotlight. The Stolen Valor Act of 2005, signed into law by President Bush, made it a federal misdemeanor to claim to have received meritorious awards from the U.S. military. The law was struck down as an unconstitutional breech of First Amendment rights in 2010 and an appeal was refused by the U.S. Court of Appeals (9th Circuit). The FBI chose not to prosecute Hillar based on the SVA and instead charged him with mail fraud due to his use of falsified career achievements to obtain work as a professor and paid speaker. His story is baffling, and even more troublesome is how long he was able to keep up his ruse.

False History

William Hillar claimed that he had led the life of an American hero, according to the FBI affidavit that was unsealed upon his arrest. Hillar claimed to have been a retired colonel from the Green Berets, with tours of duty in Asia, Central and South America and the Middle East. He also claimed that the move ‘Taken’, starring Liam Neeson, about a father who pursues his daughter’s kidnappers, was based on his life and the alleged kidnapping and murder of his daughter in 1988. According to his biography on his website, which has now been taken down:

“William G. Hillar is a retired Colonel of the U.S. Army Special Forces. He has served in Asia, the Middle East, and Central and South America, where his diverse training and experiences included tactical counter-terrorism, explosive ordnance, emergency medicine and psychological warfare.” [and that he] “holds a B.A. in Psychology, and M.A. in Education, a Ph.D. in Health Education, and an honorary Doctorate in Intercultural Relations.”

Hillar used these false credentials to further his career in lecturing on counter terrorism, often times to law enforcement agencies. He also landed a job at California’s Monterrey Institute of International Studies in 2005, teaching ‘Tactical Counter Terrorism’ among other subjects.

In November of 2010, North Carolina’s Elon University gave Hillar their annual award for “Hometown Hero” due to his supposed efforts to fight sex trafficking. Suspicions about his background began to rise alongside his increasing prominence. Members of the discussion forum professsionalsoldiers.org, a site dedicated to and home to members of the Special Forces community, took on the credibility of Hillar’s background in a thorough thread that led to an FBI investigation.

Reality

In the real world, William Hillar was anything but a hero. Not only did he lie about where he served and under what capacity, he was actually never even in the Army, much less an officer. He did serve for eight years in the Coast Guard, leaving with a rank of Radarman, Petty Officer Third Class, but had no discernible counter intelligence training or experience. According to the Army Times:

“William G. Hillar lived a lie and based his teaching career on military experience he did not have and credentials that he did not earn,” U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said in a statement. “He was never a colonel, never served in the U.S. Army or the Special Forces, never was deployed to exotic locales and never received training in counter-terrorism and psychological warfare while in the armed forces.”

Hillar entered a guilty plea on March 29th and has agreed to pay some $171,000 to the universities and clients that he fleeced over the past decade. He will also be required to serve 500 hours of community service at Veterans Cemeteries in Maryland, his state of residence.

Hillar’s actions and his punishment should help put the Stolen Valor Act’s reversal back in the headlines. The message that seems to be coming out from the federal courts is that it is OK to lie about being a war hero or receiving the Medal of Honor, but not if you make money off of the lie.

To see what real Special Forces members feel about Hillar, visit this thread on the Professional Soldiers forum that really gave birth to the investigation and subsequent events. A great read, and it makes you proud to have these men and women in our services.

Resources, Further Reading

Army Times
L.A. Times
WTOP Washington
Wikipedia Stolen Valor Act Page

Discussion

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