Unbelievable!

Tweet

I am absolutely appalled that such a thing could happen. The article is copied below, but you can find it here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090107/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/army_apology 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." On the Net: Army: http://www.army.mil I served in the Marine Corps for more than 21 years. I've had a lot to do with casualty assistance calls and the needs of the families left behind. My son also served three tours in Iraq, so I know only too well how frightening it is for a family to live with the ever-present fear of seeing that government vehicle pull into the driveway and a uniformed chaplain and commanding officer knock on their door. These letters notifying the families of benefits and counseling available to them came much later and the information they contained was no doubt valuable to them, but a mistake of that magnitude is unconscionable. How that many letters went through so many hands and got mailed without the mistake being caught is beyond me. I did free-lance work for a couple of years where I printed form letters that inserted the name and address from a data base during a mail-merge, so I know how it's done. I worked for a while at a bulk mailing company where letters were folded by a machine, then stacked in another machine to be inserted into the envelopes. Yes, the process is automated, but people still handled those letters and stacked them into the machines. It says the letters were mailed from an Army facility but were printed by a contractor. It's time to quit paying someone else to do our work. This project should have been handled by soldiers every step of the way; you can bet that such a grievous error would have been caught before reaching those poor families. I am livid right now. The Army admits their responsibility, and I'm sure that's a great comfort to the families who saw their loved ones memory treated in such a callous manner. Yea right ...