Baker To Receive Back Pay Soon Clinton Signs Defense Bill, Authorizing About $64,000
Vernon Baker’s back pay is nearly “check-in-the-mail reality” following President Clinton’s signing of a defense spending bill last week.
Baker should receive about $64,000 in tax-free pay to make up for the money he would have been paid had he received the Medal of Honor in 1945, not 52 years later.
Exact figures are yet to be calculated by the Army and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“I never expected anything like that,” Baker said from his St. Maries area home. “It’s a little heady that somebody’s going to give me a big chunk of money.
“I can get a few bills paid if it comes through.”
However, Baker, 77, says he wouldn’t want to endure World War II over again for the bonus pay. “Life is more precious than money,” he said.
Medal of Honor recipients receive a tax-free stipend as part of the benefits of earning the nation’s highest honor for battlefield valor. There are 169 living Medal of Honor recipients. Three, including Baker, are black.
Baker fought with the 92nd Infantry Division, the last all-black division to go to combat for the United States. He was nominated for the Medal of Honor following the Battle for Castle Aghinolfi along Italy’s Gothic Line in 1945, but the nomination was lost.
He later received the Distinguished Service Cross - the nation’s second-highest honor for battlefield bravery.
Current law stipulates Medal of Honor pay is not retroactive. But a study commissioned by the Army four years ago determined that Baker and nine other black soldiers who fought in World War II had been denied the Medal of Honor because of racism.
The cases of the 10 men were stripped of any identifying information including race, mixed with the cases of 10 white soldiers who had received the Medal of Honor and submitted to an Army review panel.
The panel affirmed the Medals of Honor for the 10 white soldiers and also said seven of the 10 blacks, including Baker, should receive the medal.
Baker is the only living member of that group. Four of the soldiers were killed in action. Edward A. Carter and Charles L. Thomas died several years after the war ended in 1945.
Because of the racism involved, U.S. Sens. Larry Craig and Dirk Kempthorne, both Republicans, pushed Congress to allow an exception for Baker’s pay and introduced the amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act.
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