St. Joseph News-Press
Ken Newton

A modest cost saving will not pay for the disrespect purchased by cutting back on a commitment to provide full funeral honors for deserving military veterans, Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran said.

The Republican senator took to the senate floor last week to argue for the restoration of personnel in eight states, including his own, that coordinate these ceremonies.

“The National Guard Bureau is claiming a marginal cost savings as the excuse to eliminate these coordinator positions,” Moran said Wednesday.

“However, a cost savings is an unacceptable justification, especially if losing these positions leads to more service members not receiving military honors as our final demonstration of respect for their service.”

The Kansan made the remarks during a debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, which directs spending (in this case, $716 billion in Fiscal 2019) for military programs and policies.

Moran serves on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and his comments stemmed from a report by the Army Auditing Agency. Among other things, it found that the Military Funeral Honors program failed to perform its primary function for 88 veterans in one recent year.

“One service without its deserved honors is one too many,” Moran told fellow senators.

The senator from Kansas offered an amendment intended to protect the honors program in the Army National Guard and ensure each state keeps at least one military funeral coordinator.

Coordinators serve as liaisons between the military and a veteran’s surviving family members. They determine honors eligibility, train those participating in the program and help families in need of assistance.

Along with Kansas, coordinator positions were in line to be eliminated in Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Wyoming, South Dakota and West Virginia.

“Common sense would tell one that if military honors are not being rendered when they should be, as this audit found, the National Guard Bureau should do everything possible to make certain to reverse that terrible outcome,” Moran said.

The final vote on the overall defense bill will take place this week.

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