I've never really liked the idea of the victim's fund in the first place - if military members get killed while on active duty, all the next of kin is entitled to is an $8k death allowance, to pay for funeral expenses. If the guy doesn't have life insurance, guess what the family gets on top of that? The big donut. And like Ms. Pearl is demonstrating, other American victims of terrorism get similar short shrift.
I think it comes down to a fundamental sense of fairness. Tragic though 9/11 certainly was, why are their deaths more "valuable" than, say, someone's mom getting shot in the line, patrolling the streets of DC?
Ms Pearl is doing a service by pointing out this inequity, and I salute her in her struggle to support herself and her son fatherless.
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"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."
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