Posted on: Monday, March 28, 2005

MILITARY UPDATE

By Tom Philpott

Rachelle Arroyave was 27, pregnant and caring for two young daughters at Camp Pendleton, Calif., when notified last April 15 that her husband, Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Jimmy Arroyave, had been killed in a truck accident in Iraq. She got more bad news the following day.

Six weeks before his death, Jimmy Arroyave had re-designated his mother, who is not close to his wife or the children, as primary beneficiary of his $250,000 Servicemembers Group Life Insurance (SGLI) policy.

"I was shocked," said Rachelle Arroyave.

Suddenly she was a single mom with two small children, a third on the way, and no life insurance.

Arroyave told her story in a letter to Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and believes it influenced his decision to include in Senate Bill 77, his bill to enhance military death benefits, a "no surprises" requirement for SGLI. It would require married service members to get their spouse's written consent to elect someone else as the beneficiary.

The Senate Appropriations Committee is to mark up the fiscal 2005 wartime emergency supplemental appropriations bill April 6, and will include military death-benefit enhancements, most likely embracing Sessions' bill.

The House passed its own version on March 16 and included death-benefit gains that mirror most of Sessions' bill, including the SGLI spousal consent requirement.

The other death-benefit changes voted by the House would:

• Raise the $12,000 lump-sum military death gratuity to $100,000 and apply it retroactively to deaths incurred since Oct. 7, 2001, as a result of Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Arroyave and other surviving spouses would receive this additional $88,000.

• Raise the SGLI maximum from $250,000 to $400,000. This increase also would be paid retroactively to SGLI recipients since Oct. 7, 2001.

But some members and staff of the Veteran Affairs Committee, joined by a few dozen military associations, want to require only spousal notification when a married member designates someone else for SGLI. Despite that, the House approved the spousal consent requirement for SGLI.

Opponents hope to persuade senators to accept spouse notification when the Senate Appropriations Committee marks up its version of the bill after the Easter recess.

Meanwhile, Arroyave and her children, including an infant son, received some unexpected support after moving back to her parents' home in Woodland, Calif.

The city mayor, Matt Rexroad, who also served in Iraq as a Marine Corps reservist, launched a fund-raiser for Arroyave's three children and her husband's first daughter from an earlier relationship. More than $70,000 has been raised so far.

The government does provide other benefits for surviving military spouses. Arroyave said she receives a combined $3,400 a month from VA Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, Social Security and an annuity for children-only coverage under the military's Survivor Benefit Plan.