For many Americans,
Memorial Day
is just one day we as a nation set aside to honor and remember the millions of men and women throughout our nation’s history who died defending freedom and the American way of life. But for the friends and family of the fallen, rarely a day goes by that they don’t remember their loved one.
As the lead
Republican
on the
Senate
Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, who has the honor of representing hundreds of thousands of service members, veterans, and military families who call Kansas home, I know that Memorial Day is also a day to remember the families of the fallen.
BIDEN’S STRONG PICK FOR CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS
Losing a loved one to military service is a unique and devastating loss, one that the survivor community knows all too well. One of those survivors is Marcie Robertson from Manhattan, Kansas. Marcie’s husband, Army Sgt. 1st Class Forrest Robertson, was killed in action in Afghanistan in November 2013. Marcie was just 34 years old when Forrest died, leaving her a single mother to their three young daughters. Marcie worked hard to cope with Forrest’s untimely death and be both a mother and father to their girls.
Nine years after Forrest died, Marcie met someone and fell in love again. While no one can ever replace Forrest in her and their daughters’ lives, this man has become a father figure to her daughters and a life partner, helping to fill the devastating void that Forrest left behind. Marcie would like to marry this man and cement his role in their family. However, under current law, if Marcie remarries him before her 55th birthday, she will lose her survivor benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Estimates indicate that there are approximately 30,000 surviving spouses under the age of 55. As the law stands, every single one of them would be penalized by the loss of their survivor benefits if they remarry before that arbitrary age. Many surviving spouses choose not to remarry after the death of their service member because the loss of those financial benefits would hurt them and their children.
Nothing and no one can bring back a fallen service member or ease the grief caused by a life cut short by military service. The loss that Marcie and her girls, or any other surviving family, experience is in no way lessened by remarriage. Our nation’s gratitude and obligation to survivors is in no way lessened by remarriage either.
That’s why I introduced S. 1266, the Love Lives on Act, last month with Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA). This legislation would allow a surviving spouse to remarry at any age without losing their survivor benefits from the VA or their access to certain benefits and resources from the Department of Defense. Being a military spouse is a job unlike any other, and being a surviving spouse is a loss unlike any other. No surviving spouse, who is fortunate enough to find healing and someone to love again after the untimely loss of their husband or wife on active duty, should have to choose between getting married again or retaining their benefits. The Love Lives on Act would make certain they never do.
On this Memorial Day, as we pause to reflect on its true meaning, let us also remember not just the fallen, but also the families that they left behind — families such as Marcie’s. Their love lives on, and our commitment to them as a grateful nation does too.
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Jerry Moran is a U.S. senator for Kansas and serves as the ranking member on the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.