Military families subject of (cruel) hoax

cadillacnews ^ | April 7, 2003 | Rick Charmoli

[Indy Pendance]

CADILLAC - A recent hoax has some families of service men and women wondering about their loved one's welfare.

There have been several recent incidents, starting April 3, where families of deployed service members received phone calls from individuals claiming to be a representative of the American Red Cross. The callers are informing these families that their deployed service member is Missing in Action.

Incidents have occurred in Delaware, Alabama and Michigan.

In Michigan, Lisa Marks, executive director of the American Red Cross of Northwest Michigan, said the calls occurred in the Upper Peninsula and in the Battle Creek area.

"It started over the weekend and we thought it was an April Fool's joke but it continued," Marks said. "We wanted to nip it in the bud so local families wouldn't be fearful if they received the call."

If a military personnel is listed missing the military, not the American Red Cross, notifies the families regarding the status of loved ones in the military, Marks said. The notification is almost always in person by military casualty officials.

The American Red Cross does have a role during such events. The organization will act as an advocate and also put families in connection with resources in the community or military resources that could assist them. This would only happen after the military made the initial contact, Marks said.

"We are connected with the military but we wouldn't provide the initial contact to families concerning Prisoners of War, M.I.A.s or Killed in Action," she said.

The American Red Cross is requesting families or individuals who receive hoax calls to contact their local military liaison. They also should call 888-309-9679, a special Red Cross number to report the incident.

[Cultural Jihad]

How incredibly callous and cruel to perpetrate such a hoax on others. The spirit of Chemical Ali is alive and well and lurking near his phone.

[try phecta tom]

can't they check phone records like they do on police shows figure out who's doing this. They should be hung in the fricking town square

[El Sordo]

*69?

[Bogey78O]

sick. Downright sick.

[Bogey78O]

Yea, they actually can. They just need to query it out of the switch. Nothing that's impossible. Quite easy if they were in the ame town. If they were outside it's a bit more difficult but still doable.

[Samurai_Jack]

Im pretty sure they are going to catch these sick puppies and I hope they are subjected to the scorn of the entire nation for the rest of their lives. This is incredibly selfish and sick.

[spunkster]

I just heard the report myself. I was sickened by it. If this is the work of protesters opposing the war in Iraq, it shows the world just how malicious and contemptuous they really are.

[Indy Pendance]

I hope there is a list being generated, after we root out foreign terrorists, we need to go after domestic terrorists.

[RaceBannon]

This is the same sick crowd that called families during Vietnam and told the famiies they rejoiced over their loved ones being killed!!

I was a little kid then, but I never forgot hearing that on the news!

[My2Cents]

Since we're riding the world of evil, can we take out a few of these anti-war nazis too?

[pipecorp]

The anti-war , peace loving crowd, show their true self once again.

[Noumenon]

Find them. Make them die.

[norcalvet]

Everyone should know (please inform those that don't) that family notification in cases of death, missing, captured, or injured is performed by the military. Usually, uniformed members of the military including a military chaplain do this in person at the address the servicemember listed on his/her record of emergency data.

If someone experiences this, they should immediately notify the Red Cross and local law enforcement. Note as many details as possible, to give investigators something solid to go on in tracking down these villains. I'm not sure exactly where this stands legally, not being a lawyer or cop, but I'm sure at the very least this would fall under laws regarding harrassment or fraud. Short of criminal charges, I would think there are certainly grounds for a civil suit here (again, I'm not a lawyer or a cop, so seek professional advice on this).

Lastly, if family members are concerned about their deployed loved ones, they should already have points of contact within the servicemember's command that they can call. This is SOP when military folks deploy overseas.

[KeyWest]

They are taking a page from the sickos from Vietnam. Most of us took our rank off the phone listing since the sick ones would call and harass our wives with stuff like- I hope he dies. So nothing new with the "Peace" crowd.

[try phecta tom]

then by all means, this sh!t gotta stop. I can't think of anything sicker at this time

[ABE]

These people are sick and inhuman, but I doubt they're idiots. They most likely called from a payphone.

[MIgramma]

I may be mistaken, it happens, but I thought that there was an article last week where some peace-types were going to be taking down liscense numbers of folks attending a rally in AZ.
At the time we were wondering what for.
Then, later, I thought that there was a bit about the parents of service people who had attended the rally getting phone calls like this.
Am I wrong or onto something?

[dark_lord]

(1) *69 (or check caller ID)
(2) Call back and verify it is not coming from a pay phone, from the phone of a parent of some teen whose "friends" are doing this, or an office conference room phone. If it is coming from the actual phone of one of these idiots, then:
(3) Hook up your fax machine. Put in a piece of paper with some nasty message. Set up to autodial the number every 5 minutes.

Result - they will get a phone call every 5 minutes until a fax machine answers on the line. Which may take them a while to get. Until then they get the annoying squeal of the inbound fax each and every time they pick up the phone. Once they do hook up a fax (if they are smart enough to figure this out) then your one page nasty response gets delivered.

Mission accomplished. Enjoy.

[Choose Ye This Day]

What is wrong with these people?!?

Where is the soul of these peacenik, anti-American pukes?

This was in our local (Glencoe, MN) paper last week. It was a tender story about a local mom and her 3 small kids left home while daddy's Marine unit has been called up to active duty. Unfortunately, not everyone recognizes or appreciates the sacrifices of our servicemen & their families:

[snip]
There have been a couple of incidents that have made things harder for the family. Kaci said she was at a park with the children and she struck up a conversation with another parent who was there. The fact that Dylan was in the military came up, and one of the little girls playing with Kylie asked Kylie if her dad murders people. Then she told her she could not play with her any more.

Another time, someone called Kaci and said, “Your husband is a murderer. He should not come home alive.”

Kaci said what disturbed her the most about that is that Kylie [age 3.5] answers the phone. What if someone had said that to her?