Posted on 09/15/2009 8:08:42 PM PDT by Steelfish
Army Tells Dad His Soldier-Son Killed in War ... But He Wasn't
September 15, 2009
BUFFALO, New York — An Army unit is reviewing how it delivers information to families after a call to a western New York couple led them to believe their son had been killed in combat.
Ray Jasper of Niagara Falls said he, his wife, Robin, and their extended family spent four hours Sunday mourning their son, Sgt. Jesse Jasper, before learning from his girlfriend that he was alive.
The 26-year-old soldier called his father from Afghanistan to prove it after hearing about the mix-up.
"Dad what's going on?" Jesse Jasper asked.
"I said, 'Oh my God you're alive, I love you, I love you, I love you, you're alive,"' Ray Jasper, 49, said Tuesday.
An Army spokesman with Jasper's unit said officials may revise the written scripts used by volunteer liaisons to inform all families of any deaths within the unit to avoid similar misunderstandings in the future.
The nightmare started about 2 p.m. Sunday when Ray Jasper, while on a family camping trip, got an urgent message from a family liaison from his son's unit in the 82nd Airborne Division, based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. When he reached the liaison — the wife of a soldier deployed with Jasper's son — she told him she had a "red line message" that she needed to read to him verbatim.
"She said, 'I'm sorry to inform you that on Sept. 12, that Sgt. Judin and Sgt. Jesse Jasper were killed in Afghanistan,"' Ray Jasper recounted.
"My wife was talking to me at the time and I said, 'say that again,' and she said the same thing over again. I couldn't do any more. I hit the floor," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
they need to send that guy home after doing that to his family
Thank you God!
I can’t imagine.
Agreed.
My God. What an ordeal to put his family through.
Our daughter is a marine. The military always sends someone to your door if your loved one is killed in combat. This smells like day old fish to me..
Thank goodness hearing that erroneous message didn’t cause the father or one of the family members to have a heart attack or stroke!
Prayers for this family, and for the family whose loved one was killed.
I thought so too but reading the article with Fort Bragg comments looks like they call on the phone not a visit to the door. Maybe someone from the Army can clear that up.
They were on vacation about an hour and a half from home camping and thought they had already gone to the house, finding them not home and calling.
"I don't know why they would tell us about someone else's tragedy," said Ray Jasper.
Fickel said the unit is considering starting the scripts with "your son or daughter is fine." Internal jargon like "red line message" will probably go, he said.
Don't just consider it, do it. It's a no brainer.
Afghanistan isn’t worth a single American life.
This doesn’t sound right at all. I’ve been trained to do Casualty Assistance and Notification duties, and nothing described in this article even comes close to the proper procedure. When the casualty affairs office receives notice of a death, they wait on positive identification, then they look at the soldier’s records to find out who to notify. While this is going on, the Casualty Notification Officer (CNO) is informed that there was a death, and has to don the proper uniform (Class A) and go to the Casualty Affairs office for a briefing. Part of the briefing is to receive a statement containing the proper words to use to tell the primary next of kin (PNOK) the news. The CNO has to memorize the statement—under no circumstances is he/she to read the statement or even have it on his/her person while making the notification. If the PNOK is not at the expected place (usually home or work), the Casualty Affairs people do their best to find out where he/she is, and the CNO must go there.
Whatever happened in this case went completely against Army protocol. I’m wondering if the news came from someone from the deployed unit, thinking that they had heard of this soldier’s death, and going outside of official channels to tell the family.
Wow, did not know that. Jessie’s recruiter said they come to your door. That would be very interesting and I’m going to call her recruiter tomorrow and ask him. If that’s true, it is very disturbing because anyone with bad intent can devastate a family like the OP’s example.
I heard it was not the army that told them this.
Sounds screwy to me as well. If they were an hour or two away, the military would go to them. Once in the Philippines, the military reps traveled 3 days BY FOOT to speak to a wife who was visiting her family in a very remote mountain village.
And these are the people who want to run health care?
The way you describe it, it appears that Army protocols weren’t followed here.
My impression is that the father heard the word KIA and immediately convinced himself that it was his son. I'm not sure I wouldn't have had the same reaction under the circumstances. The message was poorly worded to say the least.
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