traditional_woman
September 16th, 2009, 12:25 pm
What in the world would a volunteer liason be doing calling people notifying them of their Soldiers death?????????? Who authorized this person to make the call in the first place? Sounds like somebody is not sticking to protocol.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090916/ap_on_re_us/us_afghanistan_not_dead
BUFFALO, N.Y. – 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, N.C. 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.
Jasper knew the military's policy is to notify families in person when a soldier has been killed, but after being away all weekend, he thought someone might have called after finding no one home.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090916/ap_on_re_us/us_afghanistan_not_dead
BUFFALO, N.Y. – 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, N.C. 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.
Jasper knew the military's policy is to notify families in person when a soldier has been killed, but after being away all weekend, he thought someone might have called after finding no one home.