Ed Edmundson Testifies to Congress on Behalf of His Son Sgt. (Ret.) Eric Edmundson | 12/3/2025

Chairman Boss, Ranking Member Takano, members of the committee, thank you for giving me a few minutes of your time today. Time is something that we all talk about, but very few of us, very few of us truly understand until life forces do. For my family, that moment came on October 2nd, 2005, the day my son, Sergeant Eric Edmondson, was nearly killed in Iraq when a striker was hit by an IED. In one breath, our lives were split into before and after. Eric suffered many injuries, but the one that changed everything was the loss of oxygen to his brain. It took away his ability to speak, to walk, to live independently. It took away the future he had dreamed about, and it placed our family on a path of 24-hour care that has now lasted for 20 years. I will never forget the sight of him at Walter Reed, 25 years old, hooked up to machines, his hands lying still in the bed. Just a month earlier, those hands had held his newborn daughter. In those early days after injury, doctors informed us that time was Eric's enemy. I remember standing over him and begging time to give us a chance, give him time to heal, give us time to learn how to care for him, give us time to build a life around injuries no parent imagines for their child. 20 years later, Eric is still battling with time. We now know exactly what it takes to sustain a severely injured veteran, not luxuries, but life itself. It means caregivers who truly understand his needs and know how to care and know how to keep him safe. It means a home that won't injure him, one that is adapted to support his independence now and as his needs change. It means transportation that keeps him connected to the world beyond our front door. It means adaptive equipment that provides comfort, ability, and a way to communicate. It means opportunities and the support required to stay engaged with his community. It means respite care so the people who love him most don't collapse under the weight of a constant vigil. This bill recognizes something families like mine have known for a long time. Catastrophic injuries do not get easier with age, they get harder. And the original support, while appreciated, was never designed for 20 years of round-the-clock care. But there's another truth time forces family like mine to face. One day the injuries win. When a severely injured veteran passes away, the world may move on, but the family doesn't. The home we built around the injury, the equipment we needed, the debts, the medical costs, the financial strain of years of caregiving, those remain. That's why the proposed increase in dependency and indemnity compensation is not a small adjustment. It is a lifeline to protect the surviving families who gave everything year after year alongside their veterans. It allows them to keep a roof over their head, maintain the accessible home they relied on, to avoid falling into hardship after a lifetime of sacrifice, increasing DIC honors, the veterans service by protecting the loved ones who stood by them through the worst days of their lives. Today my son is 45. He cannot speak for himself anymore. So I am here to speak for him. And I'm asking you to work together now to find a mechanism to ensure that the time he has and the time all severely injured veterans have is filled with the care and support they deserve. Thank you for listening. Thank you for recognizing what this truly means to the families who live it every single day, because time isn't the one thing we cannot afford to lose.