House and Senate negotiators late Monday agreed to a final $662 billion defense authorization bill that failed to include several measures sought by Arkansas lawmakers.
The bill, which sets military spending policy for the 2012 fiscal year, would not grant death benefits to the family of Capt. Samson Luke. The Army had denied the benefits to the Greenwood soldier on a technicality.
And, the conference failed to include language to provide a Purple Heart to Army Pvt. William “Andy” Long, who was killed outside a military recruiting station in Little Rock.
It would elevate the chief of the National Guard to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a measure supported by the Arkansas delegation.
Although the bill does not provide death benefits to Luke’s family retroactively, it would fix a glitch in the law that currently denies military families death gratuities should their loved one pass away at home during weekend drill training. The House and Senate had earlier approved separate defense authorization bills, which required a conference committee to negotiate a final version for an up-or-down vote.
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Both versions had included proposals to elevate the National Guard chief to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Only the Senate version included language to clarify the death benefits. Neither had the Purple Heart proposal but key conference members had pledged last week to try to get it into the final bill.
The House could take up the bill as early as Wednesday and the Senate soon after. The bill is expected to clear both chambers on up-or-down votes and be signed into law by President Barack Obama.
Death Benefits
U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., had sought clarifying language in the bill to make sure Luke and others who die in similar circumstances receive the $100,000 death benefits that would otherwise go to his family.
Luke, who received a Bronze Star for exemplary service in Iraq, joined the Arkansas National Guard after retiring from active duty in 2007. He died midway through a training exercise at Fort Chaffee during one of the coldest weekends in 2010. The temperature was in the single digits that morning with winds averaging 12 miles per hour in Fort Smith.
After spending most of that Saturday at Fort Chaffee, Luke was given permission to go home to Greenwood for the evening, about a 12-mile drive away, to his wife and four young children. He was expected to return that Sunday for the remainder of the training but died that evening.
The Army initially informed his widow that she would receive a $100,000 death gratuity and up to $8,000 in funeral costs. But soon after Luke was buried, the Army’s casualty and mortuary affairs branch denied the benefits, saying that his death did not occur “in the vicinity” of the inactive-duty training facility as the law required.
Pryor said Tuesday that he was pleased about the fix and optimistic that ongoing discussions with the Secretary of the Army will lead to a positive result for the Luke family in the coming days or weeks. The Army is still considering an appeal of the benefits denial filed by the family.
Purple Heart
Moved by testimony last week from the father of a murdered Arkansas soldier, negotiators had hoped to insert language into the bill for Army Pvt. William “Andy” Long to receive a Purple Heart.
But, the conference was unable to agree on language that would provide the medal to Long or Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula. Long was killed and Ezeagwula was wounded in a 2009 shooting outside a military recruiting office in Little Rock.
Daris Long of Conway, Ark., testified last week about the shooting. His son’s murderer, who professed to associating with al Qaeda, was convicted earlier this year. The Army has not defined the attack as an act of combat.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who chaired the hearing and served on the conference committee, said that he would try to get the Purple Heart language into the final bill.
“Your son should obviously be awarded the Purple Heart,” Lieberman said at the hearing.
Pryor and Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Little Rock, had sponsored legislation to grant Long and Ezeagwula the medal.
“They weren’t randomly shot or shot for some other reason. They were shot simply because they were in uniform,” Griffin said last week.
Long’s killer, Carlos Bledsoe, also known as Abdulhakim Muhammad, is serving a life sentence without the chance for parole after pleading guilty in July to shooting the two soldiers outside a west Little Rock military recruiting center on June 1, 2009.
Bledsoe was convicted under state laws. The U.S. Attorney has not pursued federal charges – something that the Long family would still favor.
Bledsoe’s father, Melvin Bledsoe, did not testify last week but sat behind Long during his testimony. Bledsoe, who runs a tour bus company in Memphis, also wants a federal trial to take place in order to expose the federal government’s failures to prevent his son from carrying out the 2009 attack.
“The federal government had their hands involved all along. The state government did not have any idea of the magnitude of this. It was international terrorism,” Bledsoe said after the hearing.
National Guard elevated
The elevation of the Army and Air National Guard to the Pentagon’s top advisory body would bring them increased status at a time when the military faces shrinking resources.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who proposed the measure in the Senate said elevating the National Guard was a decade overdue given its increased role in the post-9/11 world.
Raising the Guard’s profile is needed to insure “their voices, their interests, and their concerns” are heard during this period of flatlining or declining Pentagon budgets, Leahy said during a recent debate. Arkansas lawmakers backed the proposal and hope that it will help preserve the 188th Fighter Wing in Fort Smith from budget cuts.
The military could face deep budget cuts after a special Congressional panel failed last month to agree on a plan to reduce the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade. That failure has triggered automatic cuts starting in 2013 – including $60 billion a year from the military. The current members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have unanimously opposed the measure.
In arguing against the proposal, the military leaders said that they have tremendous respect for the chief of the National Guard Bureau, who is invited to their meetings. However, they said, the Guard chief does not oversee a separate service and elevating the officer to their level could muddy lines of command.