EXCLUSIVE — Rep. Matt Van Epps (R-TN) is introducing his inaugural piece of legislation on Thursday, marking an effort to raise the “death gratuity” for Gold Star families for the first time in decades.
Fresh from a special election win last December, Epps framed the bipartisan HONOR Gold Star Families Act in the context of the United States’s war against Iran, arguing it is needed to support those closest to slain soldiers. Reps. Jill Tokuda (D-HI) and Jen Kiggans (R-VA) are co-leading the legislation, which would double payments from $100,000 to $200,000 and apply retroactively to the beginning of 2026 to ensure families who lost service members in the Iran conflict are included.
“Unfortunately, this week we learned that a seventh servicemember has died as a result of an Iranian attack on U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia,” Van Epps told the Washington Examiner.
“This is tragic news and undergirds the need to ensure that our Gold Star families are taken care of. That’s why I introduced the HONOR Gold Star Families Act alongside Reps. Kiggans and Tokuda. This bipartisan legislation demonstrates that when it comes to taking care of our troops and their families, there are no sides of the aisle — we are all Americans,” the Tennessee lawmaker said.
The amount military families receive after the death of a family member hasn’t changed since 2006, according to Van Epps’ office. The lawmaker said that, in perspective, $100 two decades ago “has the buying power of roughly $160 today.”
“As one Gold Star wife recently told me, ‘Your bills don’t get cut in half when you lose your spouse.’ Her words were a stark reminder of the difficult reality many Gold Star families face in the wake of unimaginable loss,” Van Epps said.
Van Epps, a West Point graduate and combat veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is set to introduce the bill alongside co-sponsors Reps. John Rose (R-TN), William Timmons (R-SC), Pat Harrigan (R-NC), Derek Van Orden (R-WI), Jacolb Ellzey (R-TX), Sanford Bishop (D-GA), Don Davis (D-NC), and John James (R-MI).
The bill is backed by one of the country’s premier support groups for Gold Star Families. American Gold Star Mothers boasts over 140 chapters across the U.S., according to the group’s website. The Military Veterans Advocacy has also endorsed the bill, with the board’s executive director, retired Navy Commander John Wells, saying the fixed $100,000 death gratuity “is no longer appropriate.”
The legislation comes after the U.S. and Israel launched a joint attack against Iran on Feb. 28. The Pentagon said Tuesday roughly 140 American service members in the Middle East have since received injuries, including eight still listed as “severely injured.”
Six service members died in a retaliatory Iranian drone attack in Kuwait at the Port of Shuaiba in the early hours of the war. A seventh American service member was killed at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
More deaths would be likely in the event that Washington authorizes a ground offensive to be launched in Iran. Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL) and others have warned that accomplishing the U.S. objective of completely decimating Iran’s nuclear weapons program would likely require a ground invasion. President Donald Trump told the New York Post on Monday that “we haven’t made any decision” on deploying troops to Iran to retrieve highly enriched uranium from Iranian facilities.
WAR WITH IRAN SEES SEVERAL HISTORICAL FIRSTS
The U.S. and Israel decided to strike Tehran after being told by Iranian leadership that it had enough enriched uranium to make 11 nuclear bombs within a week to 10 days, Trump’s team previously said.
The president suggested on Wednesday that the war would end “soon” because there is “practically nothing left to target,” during an interview with Axios. Trump’s comments came after War Secretary Pete Hegseth had said that Tuesday would be the “most intense day” of strikes against Iran since the war sparked.