As a retired U.S. Army staff sergeant combat engineer living in Utah, I am disgusted by the political games surrounding the Major Richard Star Act. I completed over 300 route clearance missions and survived more than a dozen IED strikes across my career — including six blasts in Afghanistan alone. I earned my retirement and my scars.
Right now, a clean, standalone bill to grant combat-injured veterans their full earned retirement is sitting just five signatures away from a guaranteed House vote via a bipartisan discharge petition. Yet, Utah’s entire House delegation — Reps. Blake Moore, Celeste Maloy, John Curtis and Burgess Owens — refuse to sign it.
Instead, they are backing a massive omnibus bill that holds our retirement hostage. Even worse, Congress wants to fund our retirement by slashing $57 billion in disability compensation from other veterans suffering from tinnitus and sleep apnea.
My own disability ratings are secure under these new rules, but as an NCO, I refuse to pull up the ladder behind me. I refuse to allow the government’s poor financial management to continue robbing from us veterans to pay their way into free and irresponsible spending. Congress finds endless billions for foreign aid and corporate bailouts, but tells wounded troops that we have to rob our brothers and sisters to receive what we’ve already earned.
Reps. Moore, Maloy, Curtis and Owens: Stop hiding behind party leadership. Sign the discharge petition, pass the Star Act cleanly, and stop balancing your broken budgets on the backs of the veterans who bled for this country.
Ward Mayfield, Taylorsville