Military Fails Some Widows Over Benefits

[babylonsister]

Way to honor fallen soldiers and their families.


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/27/us/27benefits.html?hp&ex=1151380800&en=0766f0db93a505bb&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Military Fails Some Widows Over Benefits


By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
Published: June 27, 2006

As Holly Wren coped with her 6-month-old son and the sorrow of losing her husband in Iraq last November, she assumed that the military's sense of structure and order would apply in death as it had in life.

Dawanna Kimble with her four children and a photograph of her late husband, Dexter. From left are Estevan, 12, Raiya, 7, Jojo, 4, and Shakara, 2. Dexter Kimble, 30, a marine, was killed in Iraq on Jan. 26, 2005, when his chopper crashed in a sandstorm.

After Lt. Col. Thomas Wren was killed in an auto accident in Iraq in November, Holly Wren, with her 1-year-old son, Tyler, in their Lorton, Va., home, had a hard time getting her survivor benefits, partly because the military had his personal information listed all wrong.

Instead she encountered numerous hurdles in trying to collect survivor benefits. She received only half the amount owed her for housing because her husband, one of the highest ranking soldiers to die in Iraq, was listed as single, childless and living in Florida — wrong on every count. Lt. Col. Thomas Wren was married, with five children, and living in Northern Virginia.

She waited months for her husband's retirement money and more than two weeks for his death benefit, meant to arrive within days. And then Mrs. Wren went to court to become her son's legal guardian because no one had told her husband that a minor cannot be a beneficiary. "You are a number, and your husband is a number" said Mrs. Wren, who ultimately asked her congressman for help. "They need to understand that we are more than that."

For military widows, many of them young, stay-at-home mothers, the shock of losing a husband is often followed by the confounding task of untangling a collection of benefits from assorted bureaucracies.

While the process runs smoothly for many widows, for others it is characterized by lost files, long delays, an avalanche of paperwork, misinformation and gaps in the patchwork of laws governing survivor benefits.

lots more...

[keta11]

1. Now, how come I never heard this on the Fox-Jazeera Channel?n/t

[lonestarnot]

2. Well Gomer used to say SUEPRIZE SUEPRIZE.

[peacebaby3]

3. Well, not that I would ever want to compare my situation to what these

women are going through, but just to give you an idea of how screwed up they are on everything.

When my husband was deployed to Iraq, they messed up his paperwork and he didn't receive a check for nearly 3 months. They back paid him when they finally fixed the error after my husband had to find time to call them from Iraq because they ignored all of my calls, but after nearly 3 months, the creditors are coming after you and you owe 3 times as much because of late fees, etc.

AND, when he got back home, they again screwed up his paperwork and had us completely kicked out of TriCare so when I went to the DR. I had no insurance and couldn't get my prescriptions filled. It took this happening 3 times over a year or more before we could get this fixed because they would say it was fixed but it wasn't.

About 3 weeks ago, I had to get my a new military ID because mine had expired and they had everything wrong in the system again so it took 3 trips before I could actually get it.

There was a lady that lived near us who's son was killed in Iraq. A few months after his death she received a survey from the military addressed to him asking him about the care he received in Iraq for the incident which killed him. I sh*t you not!

[babylonsister]

4. That's tragic and criminal! I'm sorry for all you've been through as

well, peacebaby3. Now multiply that by every person serving now. It's truly pathetic!:grr: :grr:

[peacebaby3]

5. Yep and I can only imagine that what we have been through is only minor

compared to the troops who have come back physically or mentally injured and needed help from the military/government as well.

I could probably write a book about some of the stupid things the military has done that I have known about since my husband and I got married almost 16 years ago.