In recent years veterans, veteran service organizations, veteran advocates and supporters have been trying to make their voice heard and urge lawmakers to pass legislation that would fix an injustice that forces combat retired veterans to pay an offset for every dollar of their military retirement and their Department of Veterans Affairs disability compensation. Known as the Major Richard Star Act, this legislation would allow some 53,000 combat retired veterans to collect both their military retirement and VA disability concurrently, without an offset. Despite numerous published articles on major news outlets at the national level, focused articles published at the local level, the overwhelming support of the majority of both House and Senate members, and support from major veteran service organizations, there has been little movement to get this legislation over the finish line. For many, it feels as if time is running out and we are in the last push of what could be a losing battle.

Lawmakers have already placed this legislation on the Union Calendar, where bills often go to die, over a year ago. Lawmakers shot down a previous motion to add this change into the 2025 National Defense Authorization act earlier this summer, despite comments in the committee that the law should be long passed and suggesting that Congress has been kicking the can with this bill for years, with 4 yeas and 9 nays. There is little to no hope of a floor vote on this bill, despite having more than enough votes if each co-sponsor voted yes. Currently, 326 of the 435 seats in the House and 73 of the 100 seats in the Senate co-sponsor this bill, which is more than enough to pass in their respective bodies. Now, all hope shifts to hopes that lawmakers include it in a second motion to add it to the 2025 NDAA later this month. If the history of this bill has taught us anything, it is that we shouldn’t get our hopes up.

And so, this poses an important question for veterans, American citizens and lawmakers alike. What are the implications of an unpassed Major Richard Star Act? Maj. Richard Star, who this legislation is named after and who pushed for this legislation while battling his own combat disabilities, died in 2021. His wife, Tonya Star, who carried on her husband’s wish to change the current laws to allow combat disabled veterans to collect the benefits they earned, died earlier this year. The momentum to enact real change is losing the very supporters who started this battle. And the reality is that there are major implications for very important elements of how we defend our nation with an all-voluntary force that must be discussed at the very least.

Not so thank you for your service

The concept of equality is a foundational belief in America. And, to some degree, the same belief system can be observed in the military. You shouldn’t be punished for something you have no control over, such as ethnicity, religion or gender. And while that has been a tested belief in both our society and the military, another group is being punished for something they had no control over — those who become wounded, sick or ill in combat and are forced to retire before they can serve 20 years. Make it to 20 years and have a disability of 50% or higher, and you are eligible to collect both benefits without an offset. Get wounded, sick or ill in combat early in your career and be medically unable to continue serving, you are out of luck.

If you understand combat, you’d know that this is morally wrong for two reasons. First, combat has no rhyme or reason. In fact, it is the complete opposite. It is chaotic and messy. Nobody controls who is shot, who is hit by an improvised explosive device, who gets thrown from a vehicle, who crashes a helicopter, who is exposed to toxins, or who is unlucky enough to be in a port-o-john when a mortar hits next to it.

Nobody is safe and everyone knows it. That is why every single service member who serves in a combat zone collects hazardous duty and imminent danger pay. Because it can happen at any time to anyone.

Second, the bulk of wars are fought by younger service members. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s saying that “war is old men talking and young men dying” couldn’t be truer. The average age of service members wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan was just 24, according to a report by the National Institutes of Health. There is a clear fact to be drawn from this: The majority of the burden of war is placed on the younger service member. And despite that fact, they are unable to collect their retirement and disability pay simply because they were sent to war at a younger age. This is a moral flaw in the way we fight our wars. Simply put, roll the dice when you go to war and if you make it to 20, we will take care of you. If you don’t, not so thank you for your service.

The impact on retention and future warfighters

Another impact lawmakers must face in not passing this legislation is the optics of the status quo mentioned in the paragraph above sends to current and future warfighters. Those currently serving are already being deployed in harm’s way to places like Africa and Syria. And that’s just the ones we know about. Special operations forces are deployed around the world, conducting dangerous missions and going into harm’s way, and we are none the wiser. These service members are faced with a choice when it comes to continuing to serve. Is the roll of the dice worth it? What happens if I get hit? What would I do if I can’t work anymore and I am forced to forfeit a benefit?

Current warfighters may be oblivious to this, as you don’t apply for benefits until after you get out, removing chances of discovery of this injustice until it’s too late.

Social media is full of efforts to get this legislation passed and you can bet that younger service members are on social media. Similarly, future warfighters are also on social media and see the current situation they may find themselves in, with real chances of it deterring some from service.

To compound the government’s woes, veterans are less likely to recommend service. According to a survey conducted by Military Officers of America Association, only 57.6% of veterans surveyed in 2023 would recommend military service. This is down from 75.4% of veterans surveyed in 2019. The military has already stated that they are struggling to meet recruiting goals and the failure to pass this legislation does them no favors, as the millions of veterans who served are basically free representatives for military service, for better or for worse. It sends the message that the budget comes first and people come last, even though that is contradictory to current U.S. military policy.

Thanks for going to war, but you cost too much

If you read the House Report portion of the Major Richard Star Act, you’d see that a major hurdle in passing this law is the $10 billion price tag to fund the payments of the retirement pay for the next 10 years. If there wasn’t a cost, the law likely would have been passed years ago. Under the Cut-As-You-Go (CUTGO) rule, lawmakers are forced to offset mandatory spending. In layman’s terms, you have to take money from somewhere else to pay the combat retired. That is a tall ask for a country that is struggling with debt. And while fiscal responsibility is needed in this country, to balk at a price tag when it comes to veterans who have already been to war and came back injured, sick or ill sends the message that it is just too expensive to pay your benefits, even though you’ve been to war already and suffered from it. President Abraham Lincoln would turn in his grave for not keeping the promise of those who have borne the battle if lawmakers would just come out and say it rather than making us read between the lines.

As a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, I have seen cost of war firsthand. War isn’t cheap. We need food, ammunition, weapons, fuel, places to sleep, people to deliver the things we need, services, etc. Americans feel the price of that war at home. According to Linda Bilmes, Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School, the price of both wars will be between $4 trillion and $6 trillion when factoring in long-term medical care and disability benefits for those who fought it. Despite that already ballooned cost, lawmakers scoffing at a measly $1 billion a year to keep the promise and make right by providing the benefits these warfighters have earned is beyond frustrating.

Not only is it a failure to do what is right, it sends the message that wars will be fought and those who fight them and suffer the horrors of war will be forgotten because it is just too expensive to take care of them. The offset these veterans have to deal with has already unofficially been coined the veteran’s tax. Are wounded veterans just cannon fodder for fiscal responsibility when they get home or do they deserve to live comfortable lives after enduring the battles we sent them to fight? I would hope the latter is the correct answer, but as things go, it doesn’t feel that way.

Emil Hirsch, a retired U.S. Army sergeant, deployed to both Afghanistan and Iraq. He was wounded by an improvised explosive device in the Triangle of Death, which shattered his leg, and was medically evacuated. He would later be diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress and subsequently medically retired.