Widows’ complaints prompt casualty assistance concerns

Since 02-19-05

By Rick Maze
NavyTimes staff writer
February 21, 2005

A key lawmaker is demanding the federal government make it easier for families of service members killed in action to get help after two military widows told of extensive problems with the military’s casualty assistance program.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, called the widows’ complaints “stunning and upsetting.

”Craig wants the services, Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs to come up with a joint support system. “I want those agencies to work together quickly to provide a one-stop information source, both in writing and on the Internet, where survivors can find customized, integrated information about their benefits,” Craig said.

“Benefits are of little use if survivors do not know about them.”Craig’s comments come after two military widows appeared before his committee Feb. 3 to testify about problems with casualty assistance officers assigned to help them after the deaths of their husbands.

Tiffany Petty, whose husband, Army Pfc. Jerrick Petty, was killed in a firefight in Iraq in December 2003, and Jennifer McCollum, whose husband, Marine Capt. Dan McCollum, was killed in a January 2002 plane crash in Pakistan, related similar complaints.

Petty, 25, said she had trouble from the moment her husband was killed. First, the Army notified her husband’s parents but not her; she learned about his death in a phone call from a sister-in-law who “called me to see if I was doing OK,” she said.

“The spouse should always be the first notification, even if it has to be delayed,” Petty said.

Petty also said the information provided about how her husband died turned out to be incorrect, although the casualty officer may have been trying to shield her from details.

She wanted to know how he was killed and was told he died “almost instantly.” That wasn’t true, she learned from soldiers who were with him.

After being shot, he was taken by helicopter to a hospital, where he clung to life for about two hours. “He was able to communicate to a fellow soldier by squeezing his hand,” she said. “All of this information was important to me. I didn’t want him to have died alone.”

Petty said she also had other problems. “When I had questions about benefits, or simple things like moving my furniture from the base in Kentucky, they were not able to help me,” she said.

The mother of two said she had just undergone major surgery and needed help flying home to arrange the funeral, but the Army did not have an escort available and would not pay to have anyone else accompany her. Nine months after her husband’s burial, Petty also learned that the Army never paid any funeral expenses. She learned this at a Veterans Day event when she was introduced to the Army man who had personally paid the expenses.

“The Army should have been on top of this, even if the survivor has items they are responsible for,” she said. McCollum, 31, who has moved from California to Florida since her husband’s death in a KC-130 crash, said her difficulties arose when the first casualty assistance officer assigned to her deployed to Afghanistan. He was a family friend and a pilot at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif., where her husband was assigned; her new casualty assistance officer knew less and was less interested in helping her, she said.

McCollum related problems dealing with the military medical system for her and her son, who was born about five months after her husband’s death.

She said she ended up battling to keep the benefits she was told would be available for up to three years after her husband’s death, and now faces a temporary cutoff of coverage while she transfers between the active and retired health insurance programs. She’ll have to change doctors because she no longer will be allowed to use the military treatment facility in Jacksonville, Fla., which sees active-duty patients.

“I have come to learn that I am not alone in this,” McCollum said. “I am discovering that casualty assistance is increasingly failing miserably and disgracefully. Not only is there a significant lack of continuity, but casualty assistance is learn-as-you-go for officers [who] otherwise have jobs that need to be done for the unit or squadron.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said it may be time to replace the military officers traditionally assigned on a temporary basis to help families after an active-duty death with permanent federal civilian employees trained to offer more detailed and accurate information about benefits.

Graham is a member of the Senate armed services and veterans’ affairs committees that are reviewing military death benefits and casualty programs.

“We have to come to terms with the fact that the military benefits system is too complicated to think that an officer assigned as a temporary duty to help a survivor [will] understand how everything works and be able to provide the help, over the long term, that a family needs,” he said.
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Contributed,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)