The Homefront Report: Accuracy Matters Around Here

Which is unfortunate for an administration currently struggling to define war, citizenship and fiscal restraint.

Washington appears to have reached the stage of governance where reality itself has become an administrative inconvenience. The United States is six months into a war with Iran that has now roared back into open escalation, the national debt has crossed $40 trillion, private hiring is slowing, the administration is exploring another mechanism for restricting birthright citizenship, and the widow of an American airman killed while supporting combat operations against Iran says she was told some combat-related compensation doesn’t apply because technically nobody ever declared this thing a war. Apparently the bombs have received one memo and the paperwork another.

Last night we continued working in the attic, and it felt kind of like a dig for buried treasure. We found some real treasures up there. My husband’s grandparents’ original wedding photo, his grandmother’s music box that was given to her by her mom when she was a child, some adorable pictures of him as a little redheaded baby, old drawings he made for his mom, letters he sent to his parents from camp, some of our oldest son’s drawings from when he was smaller, some of our daughter’s baby outfits and Halloween costumes, and lots of notes I would leave for my husband when I used to have to leave for work in the morning.

It was a wonderful little adventure into the past. We also completely filled the dump trailer, so that’s good. We even found a chair that, according to our research, was built sometime in the 1800s. All these treasures were sitting right above our noses this whole time. I said above our noses instead of under our noses because they were upstairs, and accuracy matters around here.

Ezra, unfortunately, was forced to be trapped in his pack and play while we went on this adventure because as we carried old things downstairs there was dust and other such treasures that an almost-one-year-old would undoubtedly decide belonged inside his mouth. Once we finished, though, we cleaned everything up and mopped the floors with my new mop, which I am somehow more excited about than I was when I got my new phone. It dispenses clean water and spins the dirt out. It’s incredible. Technology has peaked, we may stop innovating now. Once the floors were clean, Ezra got to open an early birthday present, a set of foam blocks he can push around, crawl over and climb all over. He was overjoyed.

As was his sister. I know this because this morning she excitedly ran into my room to inform me that Ezra wanted out of his crib so they could play on the blocks together. Granted, I had already changed his diaper, given him a bottle and was therefore aware that Ezra was awake, but her excitement was adorable enough that I accepted the breaking news.

The rain is here today, so summer really is coming to a close. It’s sad, and also kind of welcome. More sad, probably, but I do love the smell of rain in Oregon, the feeling of raindrops falling against my skin, the nights where we stay up late to watch a storm rage through, and of course the beauty in the trees as the leaves begin to change. Each season holds its own treasures. Summer is always amazing because we get to be together as a family so much, but fall will bring its own little bits of joy as well. I know somewhere deep down my husband shares this feeling with me. However, he is currently in panic mode because he hasn’t found a place for all his outdoor tools to live and he does not want them sitting outside in the rain.

Building a shed would be expensive, but I suppose replacing tools would also be expensive. He needs to be able to use his shop in the winter, which is currently stuffed to the brim with things from the attic that we can’t get rid of but now have nowhere to store, all of the kids’ outdoor toys, electric scooters, Barbie Jeeps, bicycles, you name it, plus all of the tools for tending the woods, chainsaws and everything else that apparently becomes necessary when you own a little patch of forest. How is a man supposed to properly woodwork with all that nonsense in his way?

Now, someone could laugh and say he is lucky to have a problem like this one, and they wouldn’t be wrong, but I know my husband. I know the demons he battles, and I know he doesn’t stay busy only because he wants to. He stays busy because it keeps him grounded, allows him to regulate his emotions and helps him stay present when it matters. So it is now priority number one for me to find a solution to this problem. Will I build a shed? Likely, no. He can do that better than I can. Will I create some sort of elaborate organizational system for him? Probably, although that isn’t quite enough. I must find a way to make too much stuff have a home on our little patch of land. I haven’t quite figured out how yet, but it won’t be long.

So while the rest of us are making our loved ones a priority, solving the age-old problem of too much stuff, guiding our children into the school year and remembering to stop and smell the rain, the administration is doing whatever it is they’re doing. And whatever it is became considerably more dangerous overnight.

After roughly a month of relative quiet, the United States launched another wave of strikes against Iran, with U.S. Central Command saying American forces targeted air-defense sites, radar systems, maritime assets, mine-laying capabilities and communications facilities belonging to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

Iran responded by launching missiles and drones toward American positions and U.S. allies across the Gulf. According to reporting from the Associated Press, Bahrain intercepted an Iranian aerial attack, Kuwait reported a fire at a residential complex after an Iranian drone strike, and Jordan said it intercepted missiles headed toward a U.S. base. Iranian media also reported attacks targeting American positions in Iraq.

Then there is Kuhestak. Iranian authorities say a U.S. strike hit a house where a wedding was taking place in the southern coastal town near the Strait of Hormuz. According to the Associated Press, Iranian officials now say five people were killed, including two children, ages four and sixteen, and at least 68 people were wounded. CENTCOM says it is aware of the civilian casualty reports and says American forces do not target civilians.

What happened and precisely what was being targeted still requires investigation, but photographs, videos and witness accounts from the scene show a badly damaged residential building. Reporting from the Guardian and Al Jazeera also notes that weapons experts examining fragments recovered nearby believe they may be pieces of an American AGM-84K SLAM-ER missile.

Iran has promised a broader response. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Iran will continue to feel pressure until it abandons any nuclear weapons ambitions and support for armed groups in the region. Meanwhile Brent crude has climbed to around $95 per barrel, according to the Associated Press, more than 30 percent above where it stood when this war began. War remains expensive even when Washington has trouble deciding what to call it.

Which brings us to Maj. John “Alex” Klinner. Klinner was a 33-year-old Alabama airman and father of three who died on March 12 when the KC-135 refueling aircraft he was aboard crashed in western Iraq. The Congressional Record states plainly that Klinner was deployed in support of Operation Epic Fury when he and five other airmen were killed. His widow, Libby Klinner, now says she has discovered that there are apparently limits to how much of a war the Iran war is allowed to be.

According to reporting from Alabama outlet 1819 News and the Trussville Tribune, Klinner said her Air Force Casualty Assistance Officer told her that because the United States has never formally declared war against Iran, her family was not eligible for certain additional combat-related compensation.

To be very clear, she is not saying her family received none of the ordinary survivor benefits available after an active-duty death. Klinner specifically identified combat-pay-related items, including hostile fire or imminent danger pay and combat-zone tax exclusions. That distinction is important. Unfortunately for whoever is responsible for explaining the distinction, the government’s own rules make the explanation considerably stranger.

The Defense Finance and Accounting Service says service members qualify for Imminent Danger Pay when performing official duty in a designated danger area, and its current table lists both the land and airspace of Iraq as an Imminent Danger Pay area. Iraq has held that designation since 1990.

The IRS is equally unhelpful to the argument that Congress needed to formally declare this particular war. Its Armed Forces Tax Guide says the entire land area of Iraq and the airspace above it have been part of the federally designated Arabian Peninsula combat zone since January 17, 1991.

There are caveats. Hostile Fire Pay has different requirements and is generally tied to actual hostile fire or hostile action, while the Pentagon has said the KC-135 went down over friendly territory and wasn’t brought down by enemy fire. The Air Force has also not publicly confirmed Klinner’s account of the benefits determination, according to the Trussville Tribune. Those questions should be sorted out carefully.

There has been movement since Klinner went public. According to reporting from NOTUS this afternoon, the Air Force has now confirmed that officials are reviewing her case. Klinner says the director of mortuary affairs contacted her after her original post drew widespread attention and initiated an audit of her family’s benefits to make sure they receive everything they are entitled to. An Air Force spokesperson confirmed officials have spoken with Klinner and said the service is working to ensure she and her children receive all eligible benefits.

The Air Force has not, however, explained why Klinner was originally told that the lack of a formal declaration of war affected those benefits, nor has it said whether other Gold Star families from Operation Epic Fury have encountered the same problem. The audit’s results haven’t yet been announced.

Still, we have somehow arrived at a place where the United States can send an airman overseas to support combat operations against Iran, lose him during those operations, have Congress formally recognize that he died while deployed in support of Operation Epic Fury, and then leave his widow arguing over whether some of the compensation attached to combat applies because technically nobody filled out the paperwork declaring this thing a war. Apparently the bombs, the refueling planes, and the families burying service members certainly know we are at war. The bureaucracy, however, remains undecided.

There are other bills arriving from Washington too, and those appear considerably less interested in semantics. According to Reuters, the national debt has now crossed $40 trillion, just 19 months into Trump’s second term. Trump returned to office promising to dramatically shrink federal spending, rein in deficits, end expensive foreign wars and use economic growth to bring the country’s finances under control. Instead, Reuters reports that federal spending has risen, the six-month Iran conflict has become enormously expensive, and yields on some U.S. government bonds have reached their highest levels in nearly two decades.

Then came another economic warning Wednesday morning. ADP reported that private employers added just 38,000 jobs in August, below the 48,000 economists surveyed by Reuters had expected and following a revised gain of 46,000 in July. That isn’t the government’s official monthly employment report, and ADP’s numbers don’t always track neatly with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, so we shouldn’t pretend 38,000 is Friday’s jobs number before Friday arrives. It is, however, another sign that hiring has slowed.

Manufacturing lost 17,000 jobs. Professional and business services lost another 16,000. Education and health services added 45,000 positions, construction added 12,000 and leisure and hospitality added 16,000, leaving an economy that is still creating jobs but doing so unevenly and at a much slower pace than Americans have grown accustomed to seeing. The official August employment report arrives Friday. Perhaps it will provide better news. Until then, the government that promised fiscal restraint has accumulated more than $40 trillion in debt while fighting an expensive war it apparently cannot always afford to call a war. Fiscal conservatism is having an interesting year.

Citizenship is getting its own paperwork problem. According to draft State Department guidance reviewed by Reuters, the Trump administration is considering requiring parents seeking U.S. passports for their children to provide documentation proving the parents’ own citizenship or immigration status. The proposal is tied to Trump’s August 6 executive order attempting once again to restrict birthright citizenship, this time by targeting what the administration calls “birth tourism” and broadening the circumstances under which a child born on American soil would not automatically be recognized as a citizen.

Reuters reports that the proposal offers the clearest look yet at how the administration hopes to enforce its new birthright citizenship policy through the passport system, effectively requiring the government to examine the legal status of a child’s parents while deciding whether to issue documentation recognizing that child’s citizenship. The administration’s earlier effort to restrict birthright citizenship didn’t survive Supreme Court review, with the Court ruling that attempt unconstitutional. So we’re trying again. American citizenship has traditionally begun with a fairly straightforward constitutional principle if you are born here, with limited historical exceptions such as the children of foreign diplomats. Apparently we’ve decided the straightforward part was the problem.

And finally, Kyiv has now endured seven consecutive days of Russian aerial attacks. Reuters reports that Moscow continued sending swarms of drones toward Kyiv and the surrounding region Wednesday, including newer, faster jet-powered models that have become increasingly difficult for Ukrainian defenses to intercept. Twelve people were killed in Russian attacks around Kyiv on Tuesday. Wednesday brought more.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said seven people were injured and a six-story residential building was partially destroyed after a drone strike, while another nearby building caught fire. The assault spread south as well. Russian strikes knocked out electricity across a large part of the Odesa region, damaged a high-rise residential building, offices and educational facilities, and injured civilians, including a child.

In Dnipro, the Associated Press reports that another Russian attack killed two civilians and wounded six. Russia, meanwhile, says Ukrainian drones killed two people and wounded 16 in its Belgorod region, while Moscow’s Defense Ministry says Russian defenses intercepted 130 Ukrainian drones overnight.

There’s no peace agreement hiding behind any of this. There’s no meaningful ceasefire taking shape just beyond the headlines. There are people going to sleep beneath drones, families waking to shattered buildings, children starting school while air raid sirens interrupt the morning and a war continuing because the governments with the power to stop it have not done so.

At home last night, we pulled boxes from an attic and decided what deserved to stay. A wedding photograph, a little girl’s music box, the letters my husband sent home from camp, our children’s drawings, and the little notes I once left before work stayed. Other things went into the dump trailer because there’s only so much room in a house, and eventually you have to decide what matters enough to protect.

Governments make those decisions too, just on a scale large enough that sometimes we forget that’s what they’re doing. They decide what deserves money, what deserves protection, which promises deserve keeping, whose citizenship deserves questioning, what families are owed when someone they love doesn’t come home, and how many lives can be spent before somebody finally admits the thing happening in front of us has a name.

Perhaps there’s something useful in an attic after all. Sometimes you have to dig through everything you have accumulated, look carefully at what remains, and decide what is worth carrying forward.