America's war dead total 1,300,000. Not a single one of their widows qualifies for Colorado's Disabled Veteran Survivor Property Tax Exemption.

It takes nearly 500 feet of polished blank marble to list all 58,307 names of the men and women killed in action in the Vietnam War or listed as missing in action. Today Americans are asked by VA Secretary Bob McDonald to remember their sacrifice, and also to "welcome home" veterans of that era.

We are proud to join in that solemn remembrance and grateful recognition, so long in coming and so richly deserved. We thank our fellow Americans for noting that we've lost our husbands in that conflict.

As Colorado's Gold Star Wives, we can read over 600 of our men's' names on that black wall. Gold Star Wives also lost husbands in Korea, Beirut, Somalia, the first Gulf War, and conflicts following 9/11. Thousands more of our husbands were lost in the hazards of peacetime operations or training.

America has lost over 1,354,000 in our nation's wars.

Not a single one of their survivors qualifies for Colorado's Disabled Veteran Survivor Property Tax Exemption.  No widows of the 58,307 KIA and MIA on the black marble wall are permitted Colorado's exemption.

Combat deaths don't count in Colorado. Unique among the fifty states, Colorado requires that a veteran survive his wounds, qualify for VA's 100% disabled rating, and complete the application for the property tax exemption in order for his/her survivors to receive the exemption.

But not a single one of the 1,300,000 wartime deaths leaves a widow who qualifies in Colorado. Because these warriors died on the battlefield and never came home to complete Colorado's paperwork, their wives are barred from the property tax exemption.

The exemption is available only to veterans who survive and make it home.

Home, to fill out the Colorado Disabled Veteran Survivor Property Tax Exemption Application form. They couldn't. They died first.

Disabled veterans who made it home to fill out the application, and their survivors, are provided the property tax exemption by law, and we agree this is wholly right and proper. It was compassionate on the part of the voters who approved Referendum E in 2006 to create Article X, Section 3.5 of the Colorado constitution.

Those of us whose husbands didn't come home to complete Colorado's exemption application because they died in combat or combat support should also be considered for the exemption. 

The distinction between war widows and widows of disabled veterans is wrong.

Gold Star Wives of America are grateful and thankful for all the federal and state public laws that
have been passed in the years since 1946, providing needed benefits for surviving spouses and children of our military service members. The disabled veteran property tax exemption is based on Resolution E in the 2006 ballot. Voters approved this measure by a 78% margin, but the authors of the Resolution simply didn't think of war widows, leaving us overlooked both in the constitution and in HB07-1251.

We ask that the Legislature understand that survivors of a combat loss is equally as deserving a survivors of disabled veterans. Our husbands certainly became 100% disabled veterans upon their deaths!  The only difference is that our husbands didn't complete Colorado's application form...their sudden deaths prevented that.