(TheRedWire.com) – Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., an army veteran, stated that he was enraged after finding out that one of the 13 Gold Star families from the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan had been made to cover the expenses to have the body of the fallen woman to its final resting place.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, he revealed that last week when he had met the “Fallen 13” families, he had learned that the family of Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee had been made to cover the financial burden so that they could have her body moved to its now final resting place following her death during the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Gee family came up with the $60,000 in funding required for Gee’s body to be moved with the help of a nonprofit organization that covered the cost.
Mill’s office pointed out that the Defense Department was only given the right to refuse to pay for a body’s transportation after an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act made last year. According to this amendment, the department can give fallen service members’ families a “commercial air travel use waiver” that can be used to transport the deceased’s body in cases where the death had occurred in a “theater of combat operations.”
Gee’s remains had first been taken for a ceremony at Roseville, California. Still, for the body to be taken to Arlington National Cemetery, the cost would need to be covered by the family.
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