Posted on 08/22/2007 6:37:17 PM PDT by Clive
EDMONTON (CP) - The first warning is a phone call. It is never good.
It alerts an unlucky spouse, partner or parent that within the next few minutes they can expect a visit from a team of sombre military officers. Even before the dreaded knock on the door, the family knows something bad has happened.
Practice makes perfect in tragedy as in everything else, and military officials acknowledge that 18 months of fighting in southern Afghanistan has made them much better at delivering word of death or injury - and supporting those affected by it.
"Unfortunately, we've gotten very good at it," said Capt. Rod De Roij, a casualty repatriation liaison officer, one of six officers who recently sat down to talk about what happens when a soldier dies.
On Wednesday, two Canadian soldiers from a Quebec-based regiment died when a roadside bomb went off west of Kandahar.
The Canadian military says an Afghan interpreter was also killed and two Canadian journalists and another soldier were injured in the incident.
Delivering bad news, especially in an age when the Internet makes details and events almost immediately available, has come a long way from previous conflicts. During the Second World War, families were sometimes notified by telegrams delivered by railway service agents.
Today, casualty reports reach Canada almost as soon as they are radioed in from the battlefield, said Capt. Larry Cashman of the operations centre at Land Force Western Area headquarters in Edmonton.
Duty officers in Kandahar type whatever information they have into a secure Internet connection, a sort of chat room constantly monitored by officers from all units in the theatre of operations.
Still, first reports are always sketchy.
"They tell us how many have been hurt," said Cashman. "It takes a while from the theatre before they can tell who the people are."
Word starts to spread - from Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier's office to the unit involved. That unit scrambles its notification team: the commanding officer, the regimental sergeant-major and a padre.
When identities are confirmed, the team heads out the door, usually within six hours of the tragic bomb or bullet. They make the phone call when they're about five minutes away, or, sometimes, while sitting in the driveway.
"It's an opportunity for (the next-of-kin) to throw on a housecoat," said Maj. John Bruce, a personnel manager. "They probably have an indication that something not good has happened."
Although it takes place far from the front, what comes next is one of the toughest jobs in the military.
"I've had all the reactions," said Capt. Dennis Newhook, an Anglican padre who has broken tragic news five times. "Shock. Disbelief. Anger."
One man took a swing at him. Once, a woman turned and ran out the front door. Most just listen, stunned.
"The first thing to do is explain what happened and, as best we can, how," said Bruce. "Beyond that, they really don't hear much else."
If there is no one to stay with a person who has just lost a loved one, someone from the notification team remains behind. Nobody is left alone.
Each family is then assigned an assisting officer, whose responsibility it is to ensure they get whatever help they need: counselling, financial advice, assistance with a move, sometimes just being there. It's an all-consuming job.
"All my waking hours, pretty much," said De Roij, thinking back to when he served in that capacity. "For the first two weeks, you live to do what you're doing for this family.
"It was also one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had."
The relationship between the assisting officer and the affected family can last for months. The officer joins them as they travel at military expense to Trenton, Ont., where returning bodies arrive.
"It's draining," said Newhook. "You become embedded in their family. You're so personally tied to them you're experiencing the grief, the anguish, the happy times. It's hard to pull out on that."
The job is so demanding the military recently held a retreat in the Rocky Mountains for assisting officers.
Public affairs officers also become part of the protective cluster around the family, helping them deal with media demands. Sometimes telling reporters about their loved one can help mourners deal with the tragedy, said Capt. Lena Angell.
"They realize putting their names in print does honour (the deceased)," she said. "They do use it as a way to connect with Canadians and it can be part of the healing process."
Eventually, hopefully, families of the dead heal and move on. Usually, someone from the unit keeps in touch, checking in on special days that can be tough, such as birthdays.
The seriously wounded are eventually returned from the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, and go for rehabilitation at the nearest suitable facility to their home. Decisions on whether wounded soldiers can remain in the Forces are made on an individual basis by Hillier.
And so the military carries on, getting better and better at a job it would rather not have to do. Current practices are now being reviewed and consolidated into a formal set of guidelines, said Bruce.
"There's always been policies to support soldiers. Some have been around for decades," he said.
"The Canadian Forces is dusting off those policies and trying to articulate them in a coherent manner. It's certainly not finished.
"And it won't be finished for a while."
Sixty-nine Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan. Canada's troops are not scheduled to pull out of the war-torn country until February 2009.
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We have had to unfortunate duty of informing one of our sons about a death at home during the first few weeks of the Iraq war. The notification took a lot of phone calls through the Red Cross. One year later some poor soul from the Red Cross called here working the blood drive. She started her drive plea with “We have an emergency situation”. I told her I can’t give blood but please use another choice for an introduction. There for a few seconds I thought we had an injury report or a death in one of my sons families.
I had read somewhere that families were getting hoax calls and that the military stated that they don’t make phone calls.
Breaking “the news” is a tough job and I am glad for those who feel a calling to do it. It is one of those aspects of war that is rarely discussed but essential in communicating the message that the family who paid the ultimate sacrifice will not be forgotten after a few hours or remembered with just a card and flowers.
I think there is something inside most people, perhaps the work of the Holy Spirit, that prepares them for the moment they receive the news. I remember it was true with my father. I knew before I picked up the phone that something was wrong (he died in an auto accident while in his 50s).
For a while they were doing some phone calling for less than serious injuries until the hoax calls got out of hand. That being said the Red Cross has their work cut out with notification due to heppa laws. Gathering data just to do a notification to our troops can be a pain in the rear. I had a feeling that something had happened to one of my DIL’s and the Red Cross was gathering data.
They specifically did not make calls way back during my period of service. I do not believe this article was written to give support and comfort to the military families.
Then there is the son who doesn't have anyone call you until he gets released from the hospital. We have had two or our sons pull that stunt. Both were injured during training. One took a 6 foot header off of a building and the other survived a partial chute opening. They didn't want to worry mom and dad until they got out.
I ran into an old—but younger than I—friend of mine at a cocktail party earlier this summer. He’s an officer in the navy. He says that in the past few years he’s been spending much of his time delivering these messages to families of servicemen killed in action. He also says it’s his duty to stick with the families and lend them support until their situation has been resolved, which can sometimes take quite a while.
The U.S. military does not make phone calls to notify the next of kin of a death. The notification has to be done in person by the casualty notification team, which I believe has to be a field-grade officer (the unit commander, if available) and a chaplain.
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=140&article=55574&archive=true
"Death notifications are always delivered to the next of kin in person, never by telephone, Smith said. The news is delivered by a team of at least two soldiers "trained in notification procedures, and grief and bereavement.""
Thank you. That has to be one of the toughest jobs in the service.
If contemporary movies are to be believed, in WWII they did not use the military to deliver this terrible news, but Western Union. In the Civil War it was done in newspaper articles.
No matter how it was done , movies are not to be believed , but you knew that.
The toughest job is that of the spouse who is waiting out the blackout on communications from Afghanistan.
God bless them all.
I don't know how things are done today, but ten years ago no calls were made ahead of time. My commander literally had to bang on a new widow's door at 1 a.m. for ten minutes to wake her up to inform her husband had been killed.
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