U.S. still paying Civil War veterans' families

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Quigley_Sharps, Mar 20, 2013.


  1. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

    &Category=NEWS&ArtNo=303190109&Ref=AR&MaxW=640&Border=0&U-S-still-paying-Civil-War-veterans-families
    Juanita Tudor Lowrey, 86, is the daughter of Civil War veteran Hugh Tudor. / Charlie Riedel/AP
    At age 86, Juanita Tudor Lowrey is the daughter of a Civil War veteran. Her father, Hugh Tudor, fought in the Union army. After his first wife died, Tudor was 73 when he remarried her 33-year-old mother in 1920. Lowrey was born in 1926.
    • Lowrey, who lives in Kearney, Mo., suspects the marriage might have been one of convenience, with her father looking for a housekeeper and her mother looking for some security. He died a couple years after she was born, and Lowrey received pension benefits until she was 18.
    • Now, Lowrey said, she usually gets skepticism from people after she tells them she’s a daughter of a Civil War veteran.
    • “We’re few and far between,” Lowrey said.
    Written by
    MIKE BAKER
    Associated Press










    OLYMPIA, WASH. — If history is any judge, the U.S. government will be paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the next century.​
    be paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the next century.
    At the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, more than $40 billion a year are going to compensate veterans and survivors from the Spanish-American War from 1898, World War I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the two Iraq campaigns and the Afghanistan conflict.
    The Associated Press identified the disability and survivor benefits during an analysis of millions of federal payment records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
    To gauge the post-war costs of each conflict, AP looked at four compensation programs that identify recipients by war: disabled veterans; survivors of those who died on active duty or from a service-related disability; low-income wartime vets over age 65 or disabled; and low-income survivors of wartime veterans or their disabled children.
    The Iraq wars and Afghanistan

    So far, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the first Persian Gulf conflict in the early 1990s are costing about $12 billion a year to compensate those who have left military service or family members of those who have died.
    Those post-service compensation costs have totaled more than $50 billion since 2003, not including expenses of medical care and other benefits provided to veterans, and are poised to grow for many years to come.
    The new veterans are filing for disabilities at historic rates, with about 45 percent of those from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking compensation for injuries. Many are seeking compensation for a variety of ailments at once.
    Experts see a variety of factors driving that surge, including a bad economy that’s led more jobless veterans to seek the financial benefits they’ve earned, troops who survive wounds of war and more awareness about head trauma and mental health.
    Vietnam War

    Now above $22 billion annually, Vietnam War compensation costs are roughly twice the size of the FBI’s annual budget. And while many disabled Vietnam vets have been compensated for post-traumatic stress disorder, hearing loss or general wounds, other ailments are positioning the war to have large costs even after veterans die.
    Based on an uncertain link to the defoliant Agent Orange that was used in Vietnam, federal officials approved diabetes a decade ago as an ailment that qualifies for cash compensation — and it is now the most compensated ailment for Vietnam vets.
    The VA also recently included heart disease among the Vietnam medical issues that qualify, and the agency is seeing thousands of new claims for that issue. Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator and veteran, said he has a lot of concerns about the government agreeing to automatically compensate for those diseases.
    “That has been terribly abused,” Simpson said.
    Since heart disease is common among older Americans and is the nation’s leading cause of death, the future deaths of thousands of Vietnam veterans could be linked to their service and their benefits passed along to survivors.
    A congressional analysis estimated the cost of fighting the war was $738 billion in 2011 dollars, and the post-war benefits for veterans and families have separately cost some $270 billion since 1970, according to AP calculations.
    World War I, World War II and the Korean War

    World War I, which ended 94 years ago, continues to cost taxpayers about $20 million every year.
    World War II? $5 billion. Compensation for WWII veterans and families didn’t peak until 1991 — 46 years after the war ended — and annual costs since then have only declined by about 25 percent.
    Korean War costs appear to be leveling off at about $2.8 billion per year.
    Of the 2,289 survivors drawing cash linked to WWI, about one-third are spouses and dozens of them are over 100 years in age.
    Civil War and Spanish-American War

    There are 10 living recipients of benefits tied to the 1898 Spanish-American War at a total cost of about $50,000 per year.
    The Civil War payments are going to two children of veterans — one in North Carolina and one in Tennessee — each for $876 per year.
    Surviving spouses can qualify for lifetime benefits when troops from current wars have a service-linked death. Children under the age of 18 can also qualify, and those benefits are extended for a lifetime if the person is permanently incapable of self-support due to a disability before the age of 18.
    Citing privacy, officials did not disclose the names of the two children getting the Civil War benefits
    .
     
  2. bfayer

    bfayer Keeper Of The Faith

    40 billion a year, that's down right cheap for what these people and their families have done for our country.

    The federal welfare budget is over 400 billion a year.
     
  3. DarkLight

    DarkLight Live Long and Prosper - On Hiatus

    And those people don't do **** for that money (for the most part, save the hate mail).
     
  4. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

    Agreed.
     
  5. NotSoSneaky

    NotSoSneaky former supporter

    Amen ! I served during the Vietnam Era (Did not go in-country).
    Got out with a few issues from training accidents but never put in for a claim.

    My state of residence offers a real estate abatement which is the only benefit I've bothered to take advantage of

    They didn't need to, someone else died for them.

    Veterans earn every last dime they get the hard way:
    veterancheck.

    Once you've got "skin in the game" you have a different perspective.
     
    hammer502 and chelloveck like this.
  6. NotSoSneaky

    NotSoSneaky former supporter

    Oops, double tap,
     
  7. DarkLight

    DarkLight Live Long and Prosper - On Hiatus

    NotSoSneaky-please don't misunderstand. I don't have a single problem with Veterans or Survivors benefits...like you said, they earned it, the hard way and I have nothing but the utmost respect for all of our heroes...fallen or still with us.

    I'm saying that the entitled masses just "get"...because they can, and that infuriates me. And I don't think that our brave men and women in uniform are fighting and dying so that they can sit over here in luxury on their fat a$$es.

    Fighting for our Constitution and way if life is one thing...lazy, entitled excess is NOT our way of life!
     
    kellory and NotSoSneaky like this.
  8. NotSoSneaky

    NotSoSneaky former supporter

    I believe I did misunderstand. You were commenting on:
    and I misinterpreted your intent. Been a long day, apoligies. foosed
     
    kellory and chelloveck like this.
  9. DarkLight

    DarkLight Live Long and Prosper - On Hiatus

    S'all good
     
    NotSoSneaky likes this.
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