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February 4,
2005
[Have an opinion about the issues discussed in this article?
Sound
off in our Discussion Boards.]
By Leo Shane III,
Stars and Stripes, European edition
WASHINGTON — Too often, casualty assistance officers don’t have the
financial and technical information families
need when a servicemember is killed, a panel of military widows told
Congress on Thursday.
“My assistance officer did the absolute best he could to help me, but he was not educated in the things that came after the funeral; things like insurance, social security, benefits available for my children,” said Tiffany Petty, whose husband Jerrick was killed in a December 2003 firefight outside of Mosul.
“The soldiers who were with my husband in Iraq were the ones who got me a military ID card,” Petty said. She said those soldiers also “were there when I needed someone to talk to, when I needed to hear things about his service.” Petty and other widows were on hand to testify before the Senate Veterans Affairs committee about the shortcomings in military death benefits, and ways to ease the bureaucratic hurdles families face after a servicemember’s death.
Members of the National Military Families Association and the Gold Star Wives of America complained about inconsistencies with medical coverage, confusing deadlines to switch insurance policies and a lack of resources for survivors to answer their questions.
Jennifer McCollum, whose husband Dan was killed in a plane crash in
Pakistan in January 2002, told senators her medical coverage has been
disrupted twice over the last three years and she was never informed
about financial and legal
support services.
At one point, she moved from Florida to California to be closer to an available military treatment facility, only to find out a few months later she could no longer use those medical services.
“I am discovering that casualty assistance is increasingly failing miserably and disgracefully,” she said. “Successful assistance is not the rule; it is quite the exception.”
Committee members said they are focused on not only improving the compensation side of military death benefits — several voiced support for increases in the death gratuity proposed by the Pentagon earlier in the week — but also on ensuring families’ emotional needs.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he would like to see those casualty
assistance responsibilities referred in part to civilian counselors,
who could provide more consistency than the ever-mobile active-duty
personnel. Widows at the hearing also voiced support for supplying
more comprehensive information on college
tuition, tax
issues and family counseling services.
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