Compensation
On August 26, 1994, the U.S. Department of Defense announced that it would pay U.S.$100,000 in compensation to the families of each of the non-U.S. personnel killed in the incident. At this time, the U.S. government, citing the Feres precedent, did not offer compensation to the families of the U.S. victims. This was the first time that the U.S. had offered compensation to the victims of a friendly fire incident.
In 1998 Congressman Lamar S. Smith, chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, held hearings on the compensation issue. He questioned the DoD representatives as to why compensation had not also been offered to the U.S. family members. In November 1999 the U.S. Congress passed legislation authorizing payment of compensation to the families of the American Black Hawk victims.
Read more about this topic: 1994 Black Hawk Shootdown Incident
Famous quotes containing the word compensation:
“Senators and presidents have climbed so high with pain enough, not because they think the place specially agreeable, but as an apology for real worth, and to vindicate their manhood in our eyes. This conspicuous chair is their compensation to themselves for being of a poor, cold, hard nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The only compensation which war offers for its manifold mischiefs, is in the great personal qualities to which it gives scope and occasion.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I have everything in the world that is necessary to happiness, good faith, good friends and all the work I can possibly do. I think God’s greatest blessing to the human race was when He sent man forth into the world to earn his bread by the sweat of his face. I believe in toil, in the dignity of labor, but I also believe in adequate compensation for that toil.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)