A group of bloggers were able to interview BG Reuben Jones on Thursday [January 8 2009] for a hurriedly called Bloggers’ Roundtable. The topic was a letter which had been sent out to relatives of Army soldiers who had died during the War on Terror.

The letter had been sent to an outside contractor for handling. It’s not clear whether the contractor was to do a mail merge to personalize the letters and then handle the mailing, or only part of those tasks.

The letters ended up being sent with the salutation “Dear John Doe”. In addition, an incorrect address for the Army was used.

The chain of custody of the materials and the process involved were not discussed by BG Jones. His focus, and he could not be swayed from it, was to convey in the strongest terms the Army’s apology for that letter and the hurt which it may cause family members.

I directly asked him about consequences, for the contractor and for those in the Pentagon involved in the incident. He would not answer. I was afraid to ask if the same contractor was involved in sending out the follow-up letter of apology that the General told us was being prepared.

General Jones could not say if all the original letters had been received as yet. He had received feedback from the families and many were glad to receive the information in the letter, resources for families of soldiers who had died, and only a small number were upset over the errors.

BG Jones repeatedly stated that these families were part of the Army family. He and his staff were horrified by the error and were devoting themselves to the apology and to making the families feel they had been heard.

Here is the link for the content that was intended to be shared with the next of kin:

The Army Long Term Family Case Management (ALTFCM)

Here is more information on this topic:

DoD Survivors’ Guide [pdf file]

Transcript [pdf file]