The worst job I ever had was the first job I had in journalism.

I worked at UPI, one of two wire services in the country. It was during the Vietnam War, and every week, UPI released a list of soldiers who had been killed. The list was broken down by state.

My job was the call the families of the Wisconsin victims to ask them how they felt and then to write kind of a roundup of the reactions of Wisconsin families. Twice things were so fouled up that I actually asked how a family felt before they were even told that their kid had been killed.

I vividly remember the sadness. I couldn’t imagine the grief for these families that would stay with them all their lives. I wished there were some way to lessen the pain.

I am reminded of this by the news that each of the people who were held hostage in Iran for 444 days will receive compensation of $4.4 million – each of them, or their estates if they have died. The law, signed by President Barack Obama in his last huge spending measure, provides $10,000 for each day of confinement. In addition, their spouses and children are each going to receive a lump payment of about half a million dollars.

I really don’t mean to be hard-hearted about this whole thing, but someone needs to explain this to me.

I’m sure being a hostage for 444 days is no vacation. I imagine people were afraid and very worried about their futures. I’m equally sure their families back home were bedeviled by concerns and their own fears.

The hostages have been making claims for years, and court after court – including the U.S. Supreme Court – has turned them down. But in typical congressional backdoor dealing, the payments were included in the gigantic budget bill.

How come we are paying these people because they were held hostage through no fault of their own or of the United States?

I mean we didn’t do anything to make them become hostages. We spent hours and days and weeks and months trying to gain their release. There was even an armed rescue attempt at the embassy, and eight American servicemen were killed.

Wisconsin had one of the most prominent of all the hostages in Kevin Hermening, who was a 20-year-old Marine when he was captured. He now runs a financial planning group in Wausau.

He was our very own poster child, and we called him a hero. He most recently was paraded as a foreign policy advisor to Gov. Scott Walker’s abbreviated campaign for president and has written and spoken about the Middle East.

In an opinion piece for the old Milwaukee Journal, he called for several things, including the two following points:

"The immediate and unequivocal deportation of every illegal alien and immigrant, with a focus on removing those of Middle East descent and especially those who reacted with glee at the horror of Sept. 11 (if you don’t have permission to be here, get the hell out)."

"The erection of security fences along the entire perimeter of the United States with electronic and human monitoring to prevent tampering and illegal entry."

We are giving this guy $4.4 million because he was captured and held hostage.  

"We are getting this (compensation)," he said, "because we faced refusal to sue for damages."

I pushed him to get an answer to why his group was so special that they deserved these payments, and he dodged the question, time and again. He cited his letter in the newspaper as "something you should read." But he was totally unable or unwilling to explain why these payments ought to be made. He did send a copy of a letter he had written to his clients that tried to explain the payment procedures and told me that I could, "find the answer in the letter."

As close as I could come is this paragraph. 

"Finally, there are those in our nation who feel slighted; certainly, the men who were held as POWs in Vietnam and Korea were never given their due. In the past decade, the men and women who returned from Iraq and Afghanistan were never properly welcomed home after performing heroically in our nation's most recent wars. For decades, I have advanced these causes so America remembers their service – and sacrifice. They deserved better, and this payment will permit me to raise awareness of their sacrifices."

Hermening did say that he would donate his payments to charities.

Former hostages are getting millions of dollars to compensate them for the time they spent in Iran. Each one gets about $4.4 million, but it seems like soldiers who gave their lives might also get some compensation. 

The measure was introduced by Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson, who released a statement from his office explaining why he thought this was a good idea.

"The Iran hostages sacrificed mightily for our country, and I’m delighted that these brave men and women and their families are finally getting some semblance of justice and closure for what they went through," Isakson said.

The money to make these payments will come out of a $9 billion fine the French paid for violating American sanctions on Cuba, Iran and the Sudan.

Which brings me back to the families of the dead soldiers I had to call during the Vietnam War.

My guess is that those families were a lot sadder for a much longer time than the families of the hostages. After the 44 days, the hostages returned to their homes to cheers and hugs and parades.

Those soldiers who died didn’t come home. Nobody had parades. Nobody interviewed them on television. There was just an empty place at the table for them.

Forever.

If we are going to compensate Americans who were held hostage for a year and their families, maybe we should just find a way to compensate the families who have an empty place in their hearts that will last much longer than 444 days.