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February 16, 2005
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By Raymond Perry
An incident involving a military widow in Brownsville, Tex., reveals
a hopefully isolated but significant issue of concern to all military
families.
Elisa Perez, the widow of Army
Staff Sgt. Hector Perez who was killed
in action in Iraq
on July 24, 2003, was told, in her own words, "to
go to the back of the line" when she applied for the government's
$6,000 death gratuity (doubled to $12,000 last year). She and their
three daughters were also left without a steady income and she was
diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after her husband's
death. If accurate, this incident illustrates a serious failure
of the system to take care of its own - in this case, a soldier's
grieving widow and three young children.
Perez' plight came to light several weeks ago as Congress began
considering major increases in benefits to families who lose a loved
one in time of war. What happened to this soldier's family is critical
for members of Congress to keep in mind in particular as they deliberate
on changing the death gratuity.
The Death
Gratuity is required to be delivered, if at all possible, by
the Casualty Assistance Calls Officer (CACO) making the formal notification
of the death of a serviceman or woman. The fundamental purpose of
this benefit is to ensure that a family that has lost its primary
breadwinner is not destitute until other legal requirements are
satisfied and insurance claims processed. This is important because
the breadwinner's pay and allowances stop the day of death.
In this day of centralized, nationwide computer issuing of checks
to the person designated on the serviceperson's Record of Emergency
Data, there was no excuse for this check not being handed, in person,
to Elisa Perez within a day or two of that notification. There is
no requirement for the surviving spouse to request this check. If
the words "go to the back of the line" are indeed accurate, the
commanding officer responsible for handling her case failed to pay
attention to his or her responsibility.
This is important for Congress to understand as it considers changing
this benefit. As proposed, legislation increasing death benefits
to survivors of military personnel would include:
* Extending TriCare
Medical Insurance to children of deceased service members;
* Raising the maximum coverage for life insurance through the Servicemen's
Group Life Insurance program;
* The legislation would provide any child of a deceased service
member health coverage through age 22 if the young person is enrolled
in school or age 18 if they are not. Currently, the health coverage
is provided for three years after the service member's death and
then can be purchased at the "retiree's rate";
* Increasing the Death Gratuity, which is a one-time tax free payment
to a surviving spouse of a serviceman killed in the line of duty,
from $12,400 to $100,000;
* Expanding Servicemen's Group Life Insurance by raising the maximum
coverage for life insurance from $250,000 to $300,000.
The amount certainly needs to be increased since house payments,
food costs and car payments can rip through even $12,000 quickly.
But the most critical element of this benefit must remain its immediate
delivery to the recipient.
On his death Staff Sergeant Hector Perez' family was left without
income. For any family, unless the spouse is separately employed,
the only funds the family will have is savings and there is the
possibility that even savings may be inaccessible if accounts were
not set up right.
Processing the paperwork for insurance takes at least a month or
two to verify a claim and issue the required checks. In some cases,
a family can be tied up with legal issues that delay access to funds
left by the deceased serviceperson (the courts can be really slow
sometimes).
This particular check, more than any other, is a guarantee to our
warriors that their families will be taken care of from the first
day of their passing.
Thus, the commanding officer responsible for the Casualty Assistance
Calls must take it as a personal responsibility to deliver this
check immediately. Congress, as it considers changes to this benefit,
must not lose sight of this very important purpose of the Death
Gratuity. Our families must not be left without money just because
of paperwork no matter how important or vital this paperwork may
be.
There are other signs that the Casualty Assistance Calls program
in the Brownsville area has been wanting. Sgt. Perez' family requested
that his remains be delivered for services at two separate locations.
The Veterans Administration is responsible for delivering remains
to a single location, normally nearest to the place of intended
interment.
Reasonable costs should be borne by the government, no question,
but how many services and the attendant cost of transportation of
remains to each site should be funded?
The commanding officer responsible for the Casualty Assistance organization
supporting Perez' family should have spent time ensuring that they
were fully informed of the federal services, benefits, and support
available. Several news articles on Elisa Perez and her family suggest
that the same person who told her to get in "the back of the line"
was the one explaining the benefits available to her.
It is important that Congress understand the critical issues before
beginning to change something as important to our families as the
Death Gratuity. There are two elements critical to this part of
taking care of our warrior's families:
* Immediate delivery of the check is absolutely critical to this
element of support otherwise this is just another name for an insurance
policy.
* The death gratuity is designed, in part, to ensure that the family
can meet living expenses for several months regardless of any time-consuming
legal procedures and requirements that must be met in other venues.
It is clear that senior military leaders must review the Casualty
Assistance Program in Brownsville along with a round turn on the
people responsible for personal contact with aggrieved families.
©2005 DefenseWatch. Lt. Raymond Perry
USN (Ret.) is a DefenseWatch Contributing Editor. He can be reached
at cos1stlt@yahoo.com.
All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not
necessarily reflect those of Military.com.
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