1. TIG

    TIG Member

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    Families of fallen soldiers

    Discussion in 'Research' started by TIG, Apr 30, 2021.

    I have characters who are related to fallen US soldiers. Parents and siblings of these soldiers.

    If any of you have experience or knowledge about that, please share.
    I'm talking about what happens with the family having to deal with the government or military. Or with the school (if the soldier had a sibling in high school, middle school, or elementary).
     
  2. SapereAude

    SapereAude Contributor Contributor

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    I'm a veteran but I haven't been personally acquainted with the family of anyone who was killed in the line of duty. That said, I think it would help if you could be more specific in your question(s). In general, the first thing that happens is that an officer contacts the family (usually personally, I believe) to inform them of the soldier's death. I'm pretty certain the military (Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines) provides contact information for a liaison officer who would guide the family through bringing the body home, perhaps assisting with funeral arrangements and burial, and advising them of whatever insurance or survivor benefits they might be entitled to.

    A younger sibling in high school would not be a direct participant in any of this unless the parents bring him/her in as an observer. The younger sibling's school doesn't enter into the picture.

    Is there anything specific that you need to know?
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2021
  3. SapereAude

    SapereAude Contributor Contributor

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    Last edited: May 1, 2021
  4. TIG

    TIG Member

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    Thank you for your reply and the link. I will check it out.

    The reason I'm asking the question is because one of my characters has a relevant background. A pretty major character, who is an adult in my story, has lost a sibling in war. It affected her and her mother.
    Now, the story doesn't follow the death itself or the funeral or any immediate consequences necessarily, but has flashback of the way they were coping with life without their lost loved one.
    So even though the story is not focused on the death, I have an adult protagonist who knows what it's like to be a teenager when your brother dies at war.
    Naturally anyone can imagine what it's like, and many aspects of the way it hits a family. All I need is just the tiny little thing that you would know if something like that has ever happened to you.
    I will look at the links you've provided, and find others, sure, but I know that no matter what, there are tiny things that no website can tell me, that people who experienced it can tell me.
    Just like there are tiny things that you can never get from websites about, say, Judaism or Catholicism, but your Jewish or Catholic friends know about it and you don't.
     
  5. SapereAude

    SapereAude Contributor Contributor

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    The basic process of "the family having to deal with the government or military. Or with the school" is standardized. That's the information you can obtain through those links. Beyond that, I respectfully submit that it will vary from one family to the next, and from one individual to the next. There are simply too many variables for "the tiny things" to be in any way the norm.

    For example, one family might find the officer who delivers the sad new to be very open, caring, and sympathetic. Another family, who would be notified by a different officer, might find the officer to be remote and unsympathetic (which might or might not be an accurate appraisal -- in general, the military doesn't generally choose cold fish officers for that role).

    A school in a close-knit community might hold some kind of special event to honor the fallen sibling of a student -- especially if the fallen soldier was him/herself a graduate of the school. Larger schools in large cities would be less likely to do that. In a large municipality, it's less likely the school would even know about the death. Or, conversely, a large city might have multiple citizens serving and might see its citizens being killed in the line of duty on a recurring basis.

    In the U.S., the term "Gold Star family" is applied to the immediate families of soldiers who are killed in war. You might research some stories about Gold Star families to get a sense of who they are and how they have dealt with the loss of their soldier relative.
     
  6. TIG

    TIG Member

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    I have deleted and re-edited my message. I'll write more soon. I apologize for my outburst.

    Naturally there are experiences we don't share in an identical manner because every single one of us is unique, and the people that we meet are unique. I'm not you, and the people I met today are not the ones you have.

    There are some experiences that some people just "get" because they went through it.
    When someone in my country posted a photoshoped picture of a world leader, some people in the US thought it was cute, while I thought it was horrifying. Because that type of photoshoped is linked, in my mind, to incitement, and deadly incitement. Others in my country, right or left, will get it. People from the US won't.
    People who went to high school in the US will get certain things that others won't. Like the darn scantron that isn't used too much in my country, but is used (or at least WAS used) in almost every test when I went to high school in the US. Remember Jules and Vincent in Pulp Fiction? They were talking about "the little differences" between countries. People who grew up in your country, who are your age, will "get" certain things that you get also, even though they were richer or poorer than you, and some of them are to your right politically while others are to your left.
    And people who experienced loss get one another in a way that others don't. People who served in the same military or similar units will have some lingo between them that a stranger will never truly understand.
    And if you take two different 20 year olds, each of them lost a sibling a decade ago, these two people will find common things that I can't truly grasp, even if I will read every book and blog in the world that is about loss. So that shared experience exists, even if these two people are from different states, and even if the military officers who contacted their families are different. If you went through a decade of mourning, you'll get something that another person who went through a decade of morning also gets.
    If you lost your mom on 9/11, you get what's going through the mind of another kid who lost their mom on 9/11 as well, even if there are slight differences.
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2021
  7. Thomas Larmore

    Thomas Larmore Senior Member

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    I knew a woman on a forum who was gung-ho patriotic when the war started, but when her husband was killed, it turned her against the war, and all American intervention in general. It's a bitter pill she swallowed, the war took away the future she dreamed of with her husband.
     

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