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DOD, VA offer benefits Below is a listing of death benefits provided to surviving spouses and children of U.S. servicemembers by the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs:
• A $12,000 tax-exempt death gratuity.
• Rent-free government housing for 180 days or the tax-free Basic Allowance for Housing for any portion of the 180-day period if not living in government housing.
• Reimbursement of up to $6,900 for burial expenses.
• Survivor collects payment of a member’s unused accrued leave.
• Servicemembers who don’t otherwise select to reduce or decline coverage, are insured automatically for $250,000 through the Servicemen’s Group Life Insurance program, a government-sponsored insurance program to which members must pay premiums.
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Widows can turn to TV entrepreneur
By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Sunday, February 1, 2004
ARLINGTON, VA--Meighan Adamouski isn’t too proud to accept help.
She needs all the aid she can get since her husband, Army Capt. James Adamouski, died when his Black Hawk crashed in the early days of the Iraq war.
As a 30-year-old graduate student of public administration at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and living with her in-laws, she’s more than interested in help finding free college tuition uncovered by a self-appointed advocate: Matthew Lesko.
Lesko is the goofy, fast-talking entrepreneur, clad in a purple suit peppered with question marks, who has gained recognition through his television commercials hawking products and services to help people hunt for money hidden in government coffers.
There are billions of dollars in services from job training to health care just waiting for someone to claim — but government agencies don’t advertise them, Lesko said.
But he’s cracked the code and hired a staff to do all the research, for a fee, and usually a hefty one at that, said the 60-year-old former sailor who served three years, two months and nine days, “but who’s counting,” he says.
“ I did it for real rich people who wanted to get real richer,” he said of search services that often charged thousands of dollars in fees. Now, he publishes a phone book-sized reference book, also available for sale.
But his services are free to surviving spouses of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“ The victims of 9/11 died in an accident, and they got an average of $1.7 million apiece,” Lesko said in a recent interview. “The people who are fighting for our freedoms, their families, they don’t seem to get a whole lot. We have people dying for this country and they and their families deserve every little benefit this country has to offer.
“ There’s more than $350 billion given out by federal, state and local governments for so many things, but they don’t advertise so people don’t know about it,” Lesko said.
He’s not too worried about folks who might try to dupe him out of a free search or two. “We’re not going to sniff under anyone’s rug to find if they’re cheating us. If someone’s going to try to take advantage, that’s just terrible.”
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