Burial funds, lack of life insurance in spotlight after GI’s death
Gov. Greg Abbott ordered flags lowered at the Texas Capitol last week in honor of Spc. Bishop Evans, the soldier who died while trying to rescue two migrants in the Rio Grande.
But even as the governor issued the order, a former Texas National Guard commander said Evans, 22, of Arlington, wasn’t getting the respect he deserved from state leaders.
“The Texas National Guard lost a hero and a combat veteran on State Active Duty, SPC Bishop Evans. That hurts all of us,” retired Air Force Maj. Gen. John Nichols tweeted. “Ask Texas to provide his family with the life insurance and burial honors that our veterans get when they lose their life in combat. Please. Thank you.”
Evans’ death has prompted lawmakers to dust off a plan to create a fund for fallen guardsmen when the Legislature convenes in January. The statement by Nichols, who was adjutant general of the Texas Guard under Abbott and then-Gov. Rick Perry, was a blunt criticism of state leaders’ failure to ensure that when guardsmen on state active duty die, their families will be compensated.
The families of police and firefighters killed in the line of duty can receive $500,000 under the Texas Government Code. Guardsmen cannot. Soldiers and airmen in the guard can buy life insurance policies, but they are not required to.
The 22,700-strong Texas Guard, the nation’s largest, has not said whether Evans was the first soldier to die on state active duty during Operation Lone Star. Abbott launched the border security initiative with great fanfare in March 2021.
Guard commanders also have not said whether Evans had a Servicemembers Group Life Insurance (SGLI) policy, the kind typically offered to troops in war zones.
Evans disappeared April 22 after diving into the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass to try to rescue two migrants who were struggling in a dangerous stretch of the river. His body was recovered Monday. Both of the migrants survived.
The law offering benefits to fallen first responders might be modified to include guardsmen. Separately, state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, intends to introduce during the next legislative session the Bishop Evans Act, which would create a special fund to pay for death benefits for troops serving in Operation Lone Star.
The Texas Guard’s public affairs office did not respond to questions last week. Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan also did not respond.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said through a spokesman that he supports a death benefit for guardsmen and “hopes both chambers can find an agreement during the upcoming legislative session.”
All guardsmen are eligible for SGLI, but they must pay a monthly premium to maintain coverage. A bill in the U.S. House would amend two sections of the U.S. Code to extend added benefits to guardsmen.
House Resolution 4247 would make National Guard service members eligible for Veterans Affairs health care and a Defense Department disability pension if they are injured or become disabled while on state active duty. Today, troops who are injured while on state active duty receive no Defense Department or VA compensation. If they were enrolled in SGLI when they died, their families receive benefits.
The issue of “benefit parity” for guardsmen was front and center last week at a joint hearing in Austin of the state House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee and the Defense and Veterans Affairs Committee.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer, the current adjutant general of the Texas Guard, said the force would need an additional $531 million to support Operation Lone Star from May 1 through Aug. 31, the end of the state fiscal year. On Friday, the state shifted $495 million from other agencies to the border mission to help fill the gap.
There have been five casualties so far connected with Operation Lone Star. Before Evans’ death, four guardsmen had committed suicide.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer is the commader of the Texas Guard.
Legislative failures
The concern about death benefits for troops on state active-duty missions weighs on Nichols, a onetime F-16 pilot with combat time in Iraq. He said he sent messages on social media to Abbott, U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz and Rep. Chip Roy, all Texas Republicans, in hopes of sparking a discussion about how to protect state active-duty troops.
“I was just being blunt,” Nichols said. “I didn’t want to sugarcoat it at all. I just wanted (to say), ‘Look, you don’t know this, but these folks are not covered. Y’all need to get together and have a discussion.’”
The Legislature has twice failed to ensure that soldiers and airmen sent on dangerous missions were covered by insurance in the event of their deaths. Measures to provide state death benefits to guardsmens’ families, spearheaded by state Rep. John Cyrier, R-Lockhart, died in legislative sessions in 2019 and last year.
Nichols said he’s sought legislation to provide those benefits since 2016 and that the need has become more urgent as Abbott has deployed state active-duty troops on missions that go far beyond their traditional role of responding to hurricanes, wildfires and other natural disasters — limited engagements that last a few weeks or a month.
“I think Nichols is right,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. Wayne Marty, who led the Texas Guard from 2002-05 and sent troops on medical missions to the Lower Rio Grande Valley and on rabies control operations in South Texas. “I think it’s time to look at that. If they’re going to continue to have people on state active duty, if there is not any coverage, there should be coverage.”
Under Operation Lone Star, 6,128 guardsmen are serving on the border, with an additional 3,700 elsewhere, making it the organization’s largest mission in decades. The state also has assigned 1,600 Department of Public Safety troopers to the border.
Until last year, Texas Guard border forays had a relatively small footprint. In 2014, then-Gov. Perry dispatched 1,000 troops to be “the tip of the spear in protecting Americans from these cartels and gangs.”
Troops in the current mission have complained about problems that include cramped sleeping quarters, a lack of portable restrooms at remote observation posts and difficulties getting paid. Suelzer, their commander, told the legislative committees those issues had mostly been resolved.
SGLI covers active-duty members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard, as well as cadets and midshipmen at U.S. military academies or those in the Reserve Officers Training Corps engaged in authorized training and practice cruises.
It’s also available to those in the National Guard and the Ready Reserve who are assigned to a unit and are scheduled to participate in at least 12 training periods per year. Guardsmen have been briefly released from Operation Lone Star so they can attend most of their weekend drills, which they must show up for to earn retirement credits.
Nichols said he learned through someone in the Texas Guard that Evans, a veteran of deployments to Iraq and Kuwait, had an SGLI policy. Because Evans was a veteran, his family also may be entitled to VA burial benefits that include a resting place at a state or national veterans cemetery and coverage of other burial costs.
Evans’ family could not be reached for comment.
The Texas Guard troops Abbott has sent to the border on state active duty have options for insurance even if they do not get an SGLI policy, but they have to purchase it. They can obtain a state-sponsored life insurance policy through the National Guard Association of Texas, with death benefits of $10,000 to $50,000.
Premiums range from $3.66 to $17 a month.
Nichols recalls having long conversations with guardsmen in which he tried to persuade them to purchase insurance.
Cyrier, a captain in the Texas Guard, believes Evans’ death will tip the scales toward granting benefits in next year’s Legislature.
“Unfortunately now with Spc. Evans’ death, everybody is quite aware of what is going on, and I feel very confident that in the next legislative session they will pass not only the death benefit but also any other type of benefits that help,” he said.
Pressuring lawmakers
State Rep. Richard Pena Raymond, D-Laredo, said the key is to amend the government code.
The Texas National Guard keeps an eye on the Rio Grande from a hilltop on a ranch north of Eagle Pass on Jan. 11, 2022. While the families of police and firefighters killed in the line of duty can receive $500,000 under the Texas Government Code, guardsmen cannot. Soldiers and airmen in the guard can buy life insurance policies, but are not required to.
Jerry Lara / San Antonio Express-News“I think several of us have talked and we will be pushing it, and I’m sure we will pass it in the House. I feel confident of that,” said Raymond, chairman of the Defense and Veterans Affairs Committee.
He’d like to make the bill retroactive so Evans’ family can receive the benefit. But Gutierrez, whose state Senate district includes the area where the young soldier died and who is an ardent opponent of Operation Lone Star, said his measure would sidestep retroactive benefits by giving the guard’s adjutant general authority to disburse $500,000 to the beneficiaries of troops who die in the line of duty.
“This is not just a time for thoughts and prayers,” said Gutierrez, a former chairman of the House Defense and Veterans Affairs Committee. “It’s a time for people calling us for solutions, and much of Operation Lone Star over the last year plus three months has been one political stunt after the other at the expense of taxpayers, at the expense of due process and unfortunately at the expense of four, and now five, five soldiers culminating in the drowning of Bishop Evans.”
Nichols stays away from the politics of the operation. For him, there’s just one goal: protecting guardsmen’s families.
“They’re putting their lives on the line,” he said.
