Jason Leisey is a disabled Iraq War veteran, Columbia Business School graduate and small-business owner. 

When Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., co-sponsored the Major Richard Star Act in 2021, he stood with a bipartisan majority behind a simple principle: retirement pay and disability compensation serve different purposes. Retirement reflects years of service. Disability compensation acknowledges the lasting cost of injuries sustained during that service. One measures time. The other recognizes sacrifice.

In 2025, Wicker withdrew his support, blocking the bill from even reaching a vote — despite 76 senators co-sponsoring it. He called it too expensive and labeled it “double dipping.” But the veterans affected by this decision deserve better than budget talking points when their bodies tell a different story every single day.

The “double dipping” claim doesn’t hold up

Combat-Related Special Compensation has allowed combat-wounded retirees to receive both retirement and disability pay for two decades. The Major Richard Star Act simply extends this same principle to service members whose injuries ended their careers before retirement eligibility — people who gave everything they could but couldn’t make it to 20 years because of what service took from them.

Here’s the problem: A soldier who loses a leg in combat at year 18 gets penalized. If they’d made it two more years, they’d receive both benefits. Because the injury forced them out early, they lose one. The policy literally punishes people for being wounded too severely, too soon.

It’s too expensive? Look where the money actually goes

Here’s what makes the cost argument impossible to accept: the Department of Defense cannot account for 60% of its $3.8 trillion in assets. The Army alone has $220 billion in equipment it can’t verify. Oversight reports document contractors charging $90 for parts that cost $5, programs that burn through billions but never deploy, and duplicate systems no one reconciled.

The Congressional Budget Office says fully funding the Major Richard Star Act would cost less than one-tenth of 1% of the annual defense budget. We lose more than that to accounting errors every few weeks.

When someone says we can’t afford to keep our promises to wounded veterans, what they’re really saying is that we’ve chosen not to. Fixing the books is too hard. Reining in contractor abuse is too complicated. But telling a medically retired veteran they can’t have both benefits? That’s the easy call.

When supermajority support isn’t enough

Seventy-six senators — more than three-quarters of the chamber — co-sponsored this legislation. It had the votes to pass. But it never got the chance because one senator objected, preventing it from coming to the floor.

That’s not fiscal responsibility. That’s one person overriding the will of a bipartisan supermajority and the needs of thousands of wounded veterans. If the concern is truly about cost and policy, shouldn’t that debate happen in the open, on the record, with a vote?

The human cost

Behind every statistic is someone real. A Marine who can’t button a shirt because he has no hands, a 40-year-old who moves like they’re 70 because their spine was compressed in a vehicle rollover. They did what the country asked and came home fundamentally changed.

And now we’re telling them the math doesn’t work out — that honoring our commitment is a budget problem we can’t solve while we write checks to drop bombs on fishing boats in the Caribbean and fund conflicts in eastern Europe and the Middle East.

What this really comes down to

Strip away the legislative language and budget projections, and you’re left with one question: When someone loses their career and their health serving this country, do we keep our word?

Right now, the answer is no — not if you were injured too badly, too early. Not if the timing wasn’t right. Not if one senator decides the cost is inconvenient.

That should bother every single one of us.

Wicker has championed military causes throughout his career. He has the chance right now to let this bill receive the vote it deserves and to stand with the veterans who need it most — the ones whose service cost them their careers and whose injuries will cost them for the rest of their lives.

The Major Richard Star Act isn’t asking for something extraordinary. It’s asking us to apply the same standard to all combat-wounded veterans that we already apply to some. It’s asking for consistency, fairness and basic integrity.

If we can’t find room in a trillion-dollar defense budget for the people who actually bled for this country, we need to stop pretending we honor their service. Because honor without action is just a talking point.

This is fixable. The legislation exists. Supermajority support exists. What’s missing is allowing the democratic process to work. That’s not a budget problem. That’s a choice. And it’s one we should be ashamed we’re still making.