If you live in a very remote location (for example our past unit had to send a team to notify in the Philippines) it could take more than 12 hours.
If you’ve moved and live far away from any base, it may take the full 12 hours. If you live near the base and have all your contact information up to date with your unit, they’ll arrive at your home very quickly. The services use that time to get their notification team together, find your address and send someone to your home. The news is supposed to reach you within 12 hours of their death. Same thing goes for any children your spouse has living elsewhere or anyone else they've asked be told if something happens. A different team of notification folks will deliver the news to your in-laws – but only after you’ve been told. You are supposed to learn about your spouse’s death before anyone else. If it happens it's because it's absolutely necessary. Showing up outside this window is a decision made by some very high ranking people. This is one of those instances where the different services may change the rule in limited instances. These people will come to your door sometime between 5 a.m. If you live far away from a military base there is a chance the chaplain may be a local emergency force chaplain and not a member of the military, she said. Sometimes a chaplain may not be available and so, instead, the second person will be another “mature” service member, Skillman said.
Two uniformed service members will come to your door to tell you or, in military speak, “notify you.” One of them will actually give you the news, the other one will be a chaplain. What to expect if your service member is killed: In a perfect world, though, the below is how things are supposed to be done. We’ll note where that is most likely to happen. However, like almost everything else in the military, each service has the ability to change things at their discretion. And if you have any questions, leave them in the comments and we’ll do our best to get you the official answer and get back to you.īut first, a caveat: The policies and information we’ll talk about below are the Pentagon's military-wide standard, straight from Deborah Skillman, the program director for casualty, mortuary and military funeral honors at the Defense Department. Forward it to other members of your unit or include it in your FRG newsletter. So instead of making you sit through an acronym riddled briefing the next time we see you, we’ve gone straight to the source at the Pentagon to get you as cut and dry a run down here as we can.