thedrifter
04-24-07, 07:42 PM
Families say gaps in assistance cause hardship
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Apr 24, 2007 13:42:17 EDT
Gaps in government assistance are causing serious problems for the spouses, children and parents of service members and veterans, House lawmakers were told April 24.
The hearing of the House Veterans’ Affairs disability assistance and memorial affairs subcommittee featured an Iowa Falls, Iowa, grandmother caring for the 9-year-old daughter of her deceased daughter and two Redlands, Calif., grandparents caring for the 2½-year-old son of their deceased daughter; the Bartow, Fla., wife of a Vietnam veteran with lung cancer; and the Lorton, Va., widow of an Army warrant officer who has had trouble getting survivor benefits and accurate information on other benefits
Rep. John Hall, D-N.Y., the subcommittee chairman, said the testimony is proof that the government needs to rethink how it assists the families of veterans.
“We assume the veteran is male and children live with both biological parents. This is not always the case,” Hall said, noting that more than 140 single parents, most of them women, have died in Iraq.
“We are witnessing a new phenomenon of grandparents raising grandchildren who have been orphaned by the Iraq war,” he said.
Susan Jaenke of Iowa Falls, who is raising her granddaughter, Kayla, is an example. Kayla’s mother, Jaime, was a Navy corpsman killed in Iraq last June. Before deploying, Jaime, a petty officer second class, spoke about the $100,000 death gratuity that would be available to raise her daughter and to help cover the cost of a family business in case of death, Jaenke told the subcommittee.
That didn’t happen because of a restriction, apparently unknown to the sailor, which requires the $100,000 death benefit to be held in a trust fund and paid to Kayla on her 18th birthday.
“Without that money, I have been faced with bills that far exceed my income,” said Jaenke, a former postal worker who is unable to work due to disability. She was just two weeks from foreclosure on her home when her problems were reported in the national media, which led some people to make donations to help her, she said. She is now current on her bills but still worried.
Matthew and Barbara Jean Heavrin, whose daughter, Hannah Leah, died in Iraq last fall, talked of a different struggle to raise their grandson, Todd, born in 2004 during Hannah Leah’s first marriage.
When Hannah Leah, an Army quartermaster, was killed, her $100,000 death gratuity and $400,000 Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance payment went to her second husband — who shared none of it with the grandparents.
“We have been taking care of our grandson since the day he was born,” said Matthew Heavrin, a Navy veteran. “We are not in the business to take anything that does not belong to us, but to have our daughter taken from us in the manner that she was, and for Todd to grow up without his mother and without her death benefit, is just plain wrong.”
Bureaucracy was cited as a problem more than once at the hearing. “They try to be helpful, but the nature of the dual system in which both the {departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense] provide benefits makes it very hard for an individual who has just lost a loved one,” Hall said.
Kimberly Hazelgrove, a former Army sergeant first class and mother of four, described dealing with bureaucracy after the January 2004 death in Iraq of her husband, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Brian Hazelgrove.
“I feel that adequate training and resources are still lacking for all personnel who function in various roles while supporting a casualty’s family,” said Hazelgrove, who left the Army a year after her husband’s death.
Hazelgrove, now active in Gold Star Wives of America, an group representing the interests of military survivors, said she’d like to see a single office dedicated to helping families and better training for casualty officers.
In her own case, Hazelgrove said the officers sent to notify her of her husband’s death had the wrong address at Fort Drum, although she knew the proper information was available. The casualty officers “actually had to call me in the middle of the night before arriving at my house,” she said. “By the time they arrived, I knew why they were coming.”
Amy Clark, the spouse of Vietnam veteran Russell Clark, also testified about frustration in dealing with bureaucracy. Her husband has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. “I have had to stop working and quit going to college to stay home and care for my husband,” she said.
Among her frustrations is difficulty in getting the VA to tell her anything without first going through her husband — who is sometimes unable to speak because of his medication — and of what she sees as endless demand for more documentation.
“To date, I have over 400 pages of documentation. “It is extremely overwhelming to have to wade through the mountains of paperwork that the VA requires,” she said. Ë
Ellie
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Apr 24, 2007 13:42:17 EDT
Gaps in government assistance are causing serious problems for the spouses, children and parents of service members and veterans, House lawmakers were told April 24.
The hearing of the House Veterans’ Affairs disability assistance and memorial affairs subcommittee featured an Iowa Falls, Iowa, grandmother caring for the 9-year-old daughter of her deceased daughter and two Redlands, Calif., grandparents caring for the 2½-year-old son of their deceased daughter; the Bartow, Fla., wife of a Vietnam veteran with lung cancer; and the Lorton, Va., widow of an Army warrant officer who has had trouble getting survivor benefits and accurate information on other benefits
Rep. John Hall, D-N.Y., the subcommittee chairman, said the testimony is proof that the government needs to rethink how it assists the families of veterans.
“We assume the veteran is male and children live with both biological parents. This is not always the case,” Hall said, noting that more than 140 single parents, most of them women, have died in Iraq.
“We are witnessing a new phenomenon of grandparents raising grandchildren who have been orphaned by the Iraq war,” he said.
Susan Jaenke of Iowa Falls, who is raising her granddaughter, Kayla, is an example. Kayla’s mother, Jaime, was a Navy corpsman killed in Iraq last June. Before deploying, Jaime, a petty officer second class, spoke about the $100,000 death gratuity that would be available to raise her daughter and to help cover the cost of a family business in case of death, Jaenke told the subcommittee.
That didn’t happen because of a restriction, apparently unknown to the sailor, which requires the $100,000 death benefit to be held in a trust fund and paid to Kayla on her 18th birthday.
“Without that money, I have been faced with bills that far exceed my income,” said Jaenke, a former postal worker who is unable to work due to disability. She was just two weeks from foreclosure on her home when her problems were reported in the national media, which led some people to make donations to help her, she said. She is now current on her bills but still worried.
Matthew and Barbara Jean Heavrin, whose daughter, Hannah Leah, died in Iraq last fall, talked of a different struggle to raise their grandson, Todd, born in 2004 during Hannah Leah’s first marriage.
When Hannah Leah, an Army quartermaster, was killed, her $100,000 death gratuity and $400,000 Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance payment went to her second husband — who shared none of it with the grandparents.
“We have been taking care of our grandson since the day he was born,” said Matthew Heavrin, a Navy veteran. “We are not in the business to take anything that does not belong to us, but to have our daughter taken from us in the manner that she was, and for Todd to grow up without his mother and without her death benefit, is just plain wrong.”
Bureaucracy was cited as a problem more than once at the hearing. “They try to be helpful, but the nature of the dual system in which both the {departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense] provide benefits makes it very hard for an individual who has just lost a loved one,” Hall said.
Kimberly Hazelgrove, a former Army sergeant first class and mother of four, described dealing with bureaucracy after the January 2004 death in Iraq of her husband, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Brian Hazelgrove.
“I feel that adequate training and resources are still lacking for all personnel who function in various roles while supporting a casualty’s family,” said Hazelgrove, who left the Army a year after her husband’s death.
Hazelgrove, now active in Gold Star Wives of America, an group representing the interests of military survivors, said she’d like to see a single office dedicated to helping families and better training for casualty officers.
In her own case, Hazelgrove said the officers sent to notify her of her husband’s death had the wrong address at Fort Drum, although she knew the proper information was available. The casualty officers “actually had to call me in the middle of the night before arriving at my house,” she said. “By the time they arrived, I knew why they were coming.”
Amy Clark, the spouse of Vietnam veteran Russell Clark, also testified about frustration in dealing with bureaucracy. Her husband has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. “I have had to stop working and quit going to college to stay home and care for my husband,” she said.
Among her frustrations is difficulty in getting the VA to tell her anything without first going through her husband — who is sometimes unable to speak because of his medication — and of what she sees as endless demand for more documentation.
“To date, I have over 400 pages of documentation. “It is extremely overwhelming to have to wade through the mountains of paperwork that the VA requires,” she said. Ë
Ellie