Military widows fight for fair benefits in Congress

Michele Linn was 27 years old when her husband was killed in combat in 2003 serving in the U.S. Marine Corps. Their only child had just turned 1 year old. Linn said it was a horrible time in her life. Each day after his death, she awoke to a fog and confusion, at times losing track of space and time. Linn had nightmares and said she couldn't think straight for years.

Now the 43-year-old Bonsall woman is struggling to raise her 16-year-old daughter on her own.

She is one of thousands of surviving military spouses speaking up across the country about an offset that they said has left them without the financial security they were promised.

The discrepancy is between two separate military benefit programs.

One is the Survivor Benefit Plan, provided by the Department of Defense, and the other is the Dependency Indemnity Compensation, given by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Linn explained that the survivor benefit plan is an insurance annuity that military members pay into on a monthly basis, and the benefits are meant to kick in to help their family survive if they die.

But due to the offset, a military spouse can't receive both benefits at the same time.

"There's a loophole," Linn said. "If you are receiving the DIC benefit, they are going to take away a dollar for dollar of your SBP annuity. That means all of the money a spouse paid into SBP just gets usurped by the government and it doesn't reach the family, leaving most of us with zero dollars for SBP," she said.

There are currently two companion bills in Congress, Senate Bill 622 and House Resolution 553, that if passed, would fix the offset, Linn said, allowing surviving spouses to receive both benefits equally.

"My husband served for nearly a decade in the U.S. Marine Corps," Linn said. Her husband, Aaron White, died in Iraq just two days after their only daughter's first birthday.

Linn said White paid into his survivor benefit plan for 10 years, yet now, she has no idea where the money went, because it's not going to their family.

"Every year, we try to get this fixed, but it only affects 65,000 citizens in America. Our voice isn't big enough," she said.

Linn isn't the only local family affected by the offset.

Fallbrook military widow, Melanie Meluat, said she was never even told about her possible Survivor Benefits Plan after her husband was killed in Iraq in 2004. Meluat's husband was U.S. Marine Jaygee Meluat, who died on their daughter's third birthday, 21 days before he was scheduled to come home.

The 36-year-old mother said she just found out that she could be receiving these payments, because her husband paid into it, as all military members do.

Now she believes she may be owed 14 years' worth of back payments.

Numerous phone calls to government entities have led to her nothing but dead ends.

"I don't know why I am having to fight for this," Meluat said.

Linn and Meluat are not alone.

In San Diego County, there are about 1,600 surviving military spouses like them.

There are many organizations designed to assist people like her, Linn said, but none of them address the daily needs of a surviving family.

Right now the women are part of a movement trying to get co-sponsors for the two companion bills in Congress.

"The more co-sponsors we have, the more Congress becomes educated and, the likeliness of this offset being repealed snowballs into success," Linn said. "It's damaging lives."

The widows' goal is to help spread the word and engage more people to care.

"Nobody knows that this is happening," Linn said. "The presumption is that we, the surviving spouse, are taken care of for the rest of our lives. That's incorrect."

The military widow is denied about $1,000 extra dollars a month that she could use to pay her bills. If the offset doesn't get fixed, Linn said she could lose her house.

"I've gone to food banks to get food for my child. Her school donated to us once. Sometimes I don't make the electric bill, and it gets turned off. I buy groceries at the beginning of the month when I get a paycheck, and when food runs out, it just runs out."

Linn works a part-time job as a personal assistant for a local author but said she is actively seeking more work to supplement her income.

"I was a typical military spouse," she said. "After my husband died, I went back to college and earned my master's degree, but I have no relevant work history."

Linn said now that she is older, she is struggling to find a high-paying job, after making sacrifices to stay home and raise her daughter.

"It's extremely depressing and difficult," she said.

Meluat said her 17-year-old daughter, who attends Bonsall High School with Linn's daughter, was accepted into college at the University of Hawaii, but she is worried she won't be able to afford her tuition.

Meluat is back in school herself, taking classes at Palomar College for business and interior design. Each day, she said she is just trying to keep her head above water. She talked about the stress and financial hardship of raising her teenage daughter alone, not to mention the pain of losing her husband to war.

"I thought we were somehow supposed to be taken care of," Meluat said. "We don't expect America to totally take care of us... but our husbands gave their lives, and this is one of the benefits we are supposed to get. Why are they not giving it to us?"

If people want to get involved, Linn said they can call their local representatives and ask them to co-sponsor the bills, SB 622 and HR 553. Use the capital switchboard number toll free at (866) 272-6622 to be connected. People can also visit http://www.change.org and sign the petition at http://chng.it/YzbZ6sNNhb. Find Linn on Instagram at "endthewidowstax."