WP: The Forgotten Families (GParents Raising Slain Soldier's Kids Denied Benefits)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021501828.html

Her daughter was killed by a bomb in Iraq. Eight months later, Susan Jaenke is both grief-stricken and strapped -- behind on her mortgage, backed up on her bills and shut out of the $100,000 government death benefit that her daughter thought she had left her.

The problem is that Jaenke is not a wife, not a husband, but instead grandmother to the 9-year-old her daughter left behind. "Grandparents," she said, "are forgotten in this."

For the Jaenkes and others like them, the toll of war can be especially complex: They face not only the anguish of losing a son or daughter but also the emotional, legal and financial difficulties of putting the pieces back together for a grandchild.

They confront this without the $100,000 "death gratuity" that military spouses ordinarily get -- a payment intended to ease the financial strain as families await government survivors' benefits.

"It really does get complicated for them," said Joyce Raezer of the National Military Family Association. The load of responsibilities placed on that generation -- both during deployment and if a service member is injured or killed -- "is a huge issue."

[Miss Chybil]

1. When I was in the Army we had to designate a beneficiary.

If there was more than one, we had to write the percentage each one would get. I was a single parent and I always put my parents as the beneficiaries just for this reason. I wonder what went wrong. Why did they say the daughter "thought she had left her." Did she designate another beneficiary? It was mandatory to fill this paperwork out. I just don't understand how this could have happened.

[Monkeyman]

2. FOBAR