A Profile in Courage

There are many issues that we can discuss regarding the government shutdown. But nothing is so tragic as the effects of the shutdown on families of fallen soldiers and the unconscionable disregard by the President, the Secretary of Defense, the House Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader, on the pain they are inflicting on these innocent people during this time of grief.    

The President has discretion on which programs will be halted while he and the Congress work to resolve the budgetary constraints that all of their petulance has brought upon the nation. This certainly was not unexpected. After all, they are all sworn to uphold the Constitution, and part of the Constitution holds all of them to various responsibilities regarding the Nation's debt. This is discussed in Article I, Sections 7 and 8. And time management is the key to resolve this well before the budgetary due date of October 1.

The families of our fallen soldiers must now make arrangements to receive, honor and bury our fallen soldiers without the death benefit required by the US military to pay to the survivors.

The Pentagon says it has specific instructions from its budget office not to make payments for deaths that occurred after 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 30, 2013. 

Over the weekend, four soldiers -- two of them Army Rangers -- and one Marine were killed while conducting combat operations in Afghanistan. The bodies of the four soldiers will be returned to Dover Air Force Base on Wednesday. 

Their families will not receive the $100,000 payment that they would have otherwise received within three days of the death. 

Adding further insult, the families will have to pay for their own travel to Dover. That's a bill the Pentagon also says it can't pay because of the partial shutdown. 

The President should be ashamed of himself for playing politics with our military. As Commander In Chief, he certainly does not command the respect of the military for the way he is treating  them and the deceased's families. He has the discretion to turn off the spigot for any program, including the failure called Obamacare. Instead, he is punishing the families of our heroes who died to carry out his war.

Quite honestly, while he can't be impeached for this horrible action on his part, the media and the Congress need to show what a nasty man he really is. But they won't because they lack the courage to stand up for what is right. 

JFK is rolling in his grave.