this. you're working on a book, working for the council on foreign relations. tell us how this can happen. >> what happens is washington has the luxury of shutting down and the war does not. a government shutdown and a war do not go together. part of the issue is that so few in this country have been affected by this war that we've almost forgotten it's still going on. now we have a situation in which like the mother you just heard, you have families paying the absolute ultimate price who are finding out the death gratuity, the $100,000 they are supposed to get immediately upon hearing the news is now an i.o.u. by a country whose government is shut down. >> there are other payments we've learned from the pentagon since our first reporting on the "today" show. there's the basic housing allowance of 12 months that is not going to be paid. burial benefits, burial in a private cemetery, which is $9,000. burial in the national cemetery,