The state of Missouri sent a bill for more than $3,000 to the parents of a U.S. Marine killed in Afghanistan for memorial signs honoring the man’s military service.
“We were a little shocked to get a bill in the mail for $3,200 to pay for our own signs,” said Mark Schmitz, the serviceman’s father, told a local TV station.
His son, Jared Schmitz, was among 13 U.S. service members and more than 100 Afghans killed in a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport during the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
Schmitz was 20 years old when he was killed.
The two signs, each on either side of Interstate 70 in Wentzville, Missouri, designate the overpass as the Marine Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz Memorial Bridge.
Why was the family billed for the highway sign?
Families of police, firefighters and members of the U.S. armed forces can be billed by the Missouri Department of Transportation for signs meant to honor the person’s service, FOX 2 reported.
But state legislators tried to end that this month by introducing a bill to stop the practice.
The bill passed the Missouri House of Representatives with unanimous support.
On Wednesday, a state senate committee held a hearing on it.
Missouri state representative Tricia Byrnes, who represents Wenztville, said charging for the memorial signs send the wrong message to the public.
“It really does have a look that we’re selling signs to the families of our fallen heroes and then paying for grass cutting along the highways,” she told FOX 2. “That is not a look we want in Missouri.”
AN AMERICAN HERO: Missouri Marine Jared Schmitz killed in Afghanistan airport attack
Who was Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz?
Schmitz was stationed in Jordan on his first deployment and was sent to Afghanistan in 2021 just a couple weeks before the U.S. withdrawal, according to his father.
“When things got a little hairy over in Afghanistan, he was one of the 6,000 or so troops that were called in,” Mark Schmitz told KMOX radio in August 2021, after his son died.
Following the deadly Kabul airport attack, thousands of people lined Interstate 70 in Missouri to watch Schmitz’s coffin return home as was driven down the highway.
Schmitz graduated high school in 2019, according to his father, and had long dreamed of becoming a Marine.
He had “perfected” his skills in the Marine Corps, his father told KMOX radio, and “took his job very seriously.”
“His life meant so much more and I’m so incredibly devastated that I won’t be able to see the man that he was very quickly growing into becoming,” Schmitz’s father told the radio station.
Contributing: Grace Hauck, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: US Marine LCpl Jared Schmitz’s family billed for highway memorial sign
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