Army Apologizes For Hurtful Message To Family Members Of Dead Soldiers

WASHINGTON — The Army said Wednesday that 7,000 family members of soldiers killed in the Iraq or Afghan wars mistakenly were sent letters addressing them as "John Doe." Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., was sending a personal letter to all the families who received the improperly addressed letters as the result of a printing error, the Army said.

The 7,000 original letters were sent late last month to inform survivors about private organizations that offer gifts, programs and other assistance to families that have lost soldiers in Iraq or other countries where they are deployed for the war on terrorism.

It was sent from the U.S. Army Human Resources Command's Casualty and Mortuary Affairs Center in Alexandria, Va., which issued a formal apology Wednesday.

The letters, which were printed by a contractor, were to have been automatically addressed with the specific names and addresses of survivors, said Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman. Instead, they contained the placeholder greeting _ "Dear John Doe."

"It's our fault for not catching it," he said. "We are certainly sorry."

Casey's personal note to the families alluded to the fact that he lost his own father in Vietnam and it said the Army is extremely sensitive to family grief.

An apology also was being posted on the human resources Web site, Boyce said.

"There are no words to adequately apologize for this mistake or for the hurt it may have caused," Brig. Gen. Reuben D. Jones, the Army adjutant general, said in the statement to be posted.

Boyce said all the other information in the letter regarding the assistance organizations was correct.

"It is important the original intent of the letter is not lost," Jones' statement said. "The organizations mentioned are dedicated to honoring loved ones and recognizing their sacrifice and commitment."

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Comments

[billbb]

In the business they are in, screwups happen. That is a fact of war, and a fact of life.

I am proud, however, that the US Army is run by grownups, who do not pass the buck, even when it might very well have been some anonymous company that produced the actual FUBAR. Take responsibility, learn from your mistakes and drive on. This is a good way to run an effective organization.

Too bad the Bush Administration didn't learn anything from the Army, despite all their purported admiration for it. Moving out in a few days is a bunch of political refugees that desperately needed adult supervision, and took responsibility for nothing they did, all the while saying that they only wanted people to take responsibility for everything.

I guess we didn't really see until it was almost too late that this meant they could get away with never taking any responsibility at all, even for things they clearly did.

[DrewzAskew]

The Army needs to outsource these types of tasks because they are short staffed on my fronts, not just in the battlefield. Unfortunately, someone didn't follow through, or missed something. I am sure it wasn't on puropose. It takes a special type of person to work in an office that deals with death on a daily basis. I am sure some civilian employee, mail fulfillment center, and/ or contractor is probably pretty upset and embarassed right now for a simple mail merge issue, or lack thereof. I actually commend the Army for quickly taking ownership of this issue and not calling out the contractor. This is not Gitmo, Abu Grab, or Walter Reed type incident, but a simple human and/or machine error.

No heads need to roll on this.

[zull2]

Not even printed by the Military itself. Of course not handwritten, of course, the Bush Administration appointees and these Generals need to be able to spend 4-5 hours a day on the links getting in some prime golf time instead of doing their duties consoling the families of their troops. Unless the cameras are there, of course. They couldn't even use an enlisted man or a reservist. Well, we've all known that they had an outside business writing these things all along...it doesn't matter if Casey tries to make up for it now. The damage has been thoroughly done to these families and blaming a contractor is just going to make them angrier. If the contractor screws up, that is 100% the responsibility of the General and administration who agreed to hire a contractor to do the most solemn duty of any military leader. Of course, the reason they did that was to "save money" and "give a donor a big contract kickback", but hey, we all knew that already.

[ArmyCentrist]

My neighbor got a letter like this, her son died last year. She didn't catch the "John Doe" because unless its an SGLI check, she throws away everything she gets from the Army now...errors like this happen when you let contractors and DA civilians do all the work.

[drauz]

Neocon warmongers in the Pentagon who were set up to generate & deliver the fake intel upon which the go-to-war decision was made should've been hand-writing these letters.