Adam Kisielewski, left, as a Marine Corps sergeant in 2006 just days before suffering life-threatening injuries in a bomb blast in Iraq. Kisielewski, right, in 2024 at the Reserve Organization of America’s offices in Washington, D.C. He advocates for the passage of the Richard Star Act. (Adam Kisielewski/Wounded Warrior Project)
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers are pushing again to overturn a federal law that stops combat-injured veterans with less than 20 years of service from collecting their full retirement pay when they qualify for disability compensation.
The Richard Star Act would restore full benefits to approximately 53,000 service members forced to retire medically due to the severity of injuries incurred in combat.
Under existing law, these veterans are denied full pensions from the Defense Department if they opt to receive disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs. They must waive a portion of their retirement pay equal to the amount of their disability compensation from the VA.
The legislation did not advance to a final vote in fiscal 2024 over cost concerns, but it is drawing unusual bipartisan support from key lawmakers, even as the administration of President Donald Trump makes sweeping cuts to federal programs.
“I don’t imagine this will be on anyone’s priority list given the cutbacks going on in government,” said Marine Corps veteran Adam Kisielewski, a sergeant from Maryland who was medically retired in 2006 after suffering life-threatening injuries in a bomb blast in Iraq. “I’m glad the country is operating in a fiscally responsible manner but taking care of our country’s veterans is critically important too.”
Kisielewski’s left arm and right leg below the knee were amputated in a series of operations. He was 21 years old at the time.
“This legislation makes a critical change to treat our veterans fairly and support our nation’s heroes. I urge my colleagues to support its quick passage,” said Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., one of the sponsors who reintroduced the legislation in the Senate last week. A hearing on the bill has yet to be scheduled.
Scott said the legislation’s passage allows for combat-wounded veterans who retired with less than 20 years of service to receive their pensions plus disability pay concurrently, which “they rightfully earned.”
Implementation of the Richard Star Act would cost more than $7 billion through 2033 in direct spending on military retirees, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
But “rules against double dipping” from federal funding sources are keeping veterans permanently disabled from combat injuries from receiving their full retirement pay and disability benefits, a 2023 report by the National Institutes of Health concluded.
The Wounded Warrior Project, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and other veterans services organizations said they are making the bill’s passage a legislative priority in 2025. The bill has collected 187 sponsors in the House and 48 in the Senate.
“This measure corrects one of the deepest injustices in our present veterans’ disability system,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and one of the bill’s sponsors.
The legislation is named after Army Reserve Maj. Richard Star, who was medically retired in 2018 after he developed lung cancer linked to burn pits and other airborne toxins in war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq. Star died in 2021.
“Our bipartisan bill will finally provide these military retirees who have already sacrificed so much their full VA disability and Defense Department retirement payments,” Blumenthal said.
Kisielewski, now 40, estimated the ban has kept him from receiving an additional $14,000 a year in retirement benefits.
“It’s not like an astronomical amount of money, but it would make a big difference to someone who’s given so much,” he said.
