I have played a few of these. It may look like a small thing, but it does seem to make a difference to the families. Please see this website to a request help if you know of a case where a military bugler is not available for a service.

Bugles Across America

An unmarried soldier, no dependents: mother and father receives 100%; if one parent is deceased, 100% to the surviving parent; both parents deceased benefit is split equally between the surviving brothers and sisters. No surviving mother father brothers sisters, money is not paid to anyone.

A soldier with dependents: Married or separated spouse gets 100%. An ex-spouse (divorced) gets nothing. If there is no legal spouse, children split the death gratuity equally.

The soldier was poorly served by her unit prior to deployment. She sat down with “someone” and filled out the death gratuity card, and did not receive an explanation of how the money would be disbursed. IIRC, she didn’t even list her daughter on the form. Maybe she thought that little white lie would mean the money would go to her parents. It doesn’t work that way. Curiously, she should have had a child care plan in her file covering how her dependent child would be cared for, and she would have been receiving extra allowances based on her dependent. Which worthless personnel clerk allowed the DD-93 to go into her file with incomplete and false information, and what a sorry piece of crap they were to not explain the regulation of the payout.

The insurance benefit, on the other hand, is different. She could have named her cat the beneficiary if she chose. The personnel clerk’s responsibility would have been only to advise the soldier it was an extremely unconventional choice, and could be subject to a court challenge. Other than that, the soldier’s choice of beneficiary is entirely their own.

Finally, they sent this soldier into a war zone without a will. The military is supposed to counsel every single soldier about their responsibilities to people they leave behind, including having a child care plan for dependent children, properly filled out death gratuity forms and insurance forms, powers of attorney, wills, and whatever else is needed for family members to function while the soldier is away, and especially if the soldier is killed while far away from home. Who did this for the unit? Did a cadre of JAG officers come into the unit, was it a personnel specialist, or was it some feckless unit clerk?

The people who were supposed to help get this soldier’s affairs in order before she deployed fucked up. They didn’t tell her that no one, especially the Army, is going to hand $500,000 over to a nine-year-old girl, and they apparently didn’t demand that she have a will to provide for her until age 18.

This whole story is sad, sad, sad. The fault lies at the unit level.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..7f8efMWM0F

“Mr. President? What can I do to help you win in Iraq?”

“Well, Gee Britney…why don’t you do something that will show your solidarity with our troops, like…”

Yeah, Abe Lincoln actually said those words. Someone might want to remind the Republicans in Congress of them.

Incredible post, Christy – incredible writing, but even more incredible that it needed to be written in the first place.

I pray for her recovery and wellness.

The media isn’t holding the Bush regime responsible for anything. In all the discussions this week, the question was, “why shouldn’t the Democrats give the Commander in Chief this chance to improve Iraq?”

NO! He’s had 4 years to do everything his way and this is the mess he created. He got every appropriation he requested, and not a peep of dissent from the wretched 109th Congress. No more. The voters sent grownups to congress this session to put a stop to this fiasco.

Well, yeah, but apparently most of the Senate Republicans, and Holy Joe, didn’t get the memo. /snark