Is this reasonable?

[Gary Childress]

Texas dad Tom Logan has had a pretty awful year. In January his son, USMC Cpl. Joseph D. Logan, was killed in a helicopter crash while serving our country. Then came the letter from President Barack Obama. A form letter.

That's right, a proud military dad was treated to nothing more than a pre-printed letter with his son's vital statistics filled in as a "condolence" for losing his own child. Ooph. Talk about kicking a man when he's down.

I think we all get that President Obama is running a country right now. He has a lot of important things to handle, like a piss poor economy and a certain former Massachusetts governor trying to take his job. Eking out some time to pen a handwritten note is not exactly easy.

But he is the president after all. He ran, he was elected to do the hard stuff. There's an obvious answer to that problem: don't send a letter to grieving parents at all.

This is not to say that dads like Tom Hogan do not deserve some form of acknowledgement of a loved one's sacrifice or that Joey Hogan's tragic death should be ignored. But half-assing a letter to a grieving parent, a letter that's meant to sum up a hero's life, is not the way to do it. A form letter of the type Tom Hogan received is most certainly half-assing the job.

The most recent numbers on casualties in Afghanistan readily available on the Internet are a year old, but they claim that 2,700 troops died over what was then a 10-year span since the war began. As long as there are any casualties, there are too many. But that doesn't mean there are too many to write letters for. Divide 2,700 by 10, and you have 270 per year, that's less than one handwritten note a day. And a man, even one who's president, can't fit that into his day?

Heck, he could easily have a staffer do the writing and just sign his name. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would at least reflect a recognition that this man, this lost Marine, was a human being, worthy of something more than a computer spitting out a pre-written note.

But if he couldn't even do that, I have to say it. Don't send a note. Don't degrade the value of a man's life with such a thoughtless gesture.

What do you think? Do you think the president should have, could have, taken the time to write a real letter to this grieving father?

http://articles2.mamaslatinas.com/i...e=outbrain&utm_content=outbrain&quick_picks=1

I wonder if GW Bush wrote personal letters to the parents of all the soldiers' who died in Iraq? Anyone know if he did or not? What about Desert Storm, Vietnam, or WWII? Do presidents typically write personal letters to parents of soldiers killed in action? This seems like an awfully unreasonable expectation on the face of it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I thought condolence letters are the duty of the deceased's commanding officer... or is that just on M*A*S*H?

 

[Agent327]

No, it's a rant. Just like it says right above the blog. Why even bother reposting such garbage?

 

[Souron]

Why is a form letter worse than no letter?

 

[Glassfan]

George H. Bush wrote personal letters to families after Desert Storm, but then there were so few. Lincoln wrote some letters to families - but only if particularly tragic. Valka D'Ur is mostly correct in that the military is responsible for notifying families, but the policy has varied and changed over time, and is especially confused at the beginning of a conflict.

Emphasis on the distinction between notification and condolance.

 

[dutchfire]

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Sounds like a quality website.

 

[Core Imposter]

There were many stories of commanding officers and fellow soldiers both writing and visiting families in our history. I don't think this is an appropriate criticism of the president, but it makes me think that the in reduction of our moral standards that it is becoming common for people not to do these things that were in our past considered social duty.

 

[Flying Pig]

You get a formal notification from the Queen, which is essentially a gap-filling exercise - brutally put, the military bureaucracy has far more important things to do than write an individual letter to your wife when the basics will do - but it's also considered good form for the deceased's CO, and usually the next officer up the chain of command if the two aren't the same person, to write a personal letter directly to the next of kin. It's a throwback to the old days - think June 1944 - when there would be far too many men dying in action and far too much work to be done for personalised letters to come even from platoon commanders, so standardised letters meant that at least Mrs Atkins would know what had happened, rather than being told as her husband's comrades came off the troop-ship.

 

[Glassfan]

You get a formal notification from the Queen, which is essentially a gap-filling exercise - brutally put, the military bureaucracy has far more important things to do than write an individual letter to your wife when the basics will do - but it's also considered good form for the deceased's CO, and usually the next officer up the chain of command if the two aren't the same person, to write a personal letter directly to the next of kin. It's a throwback to the old days - think June 1944 - when there would be far too many men dying in action and far too much work to be done for personalised letters to come even from platoon commanders, so standardised letters meant that at least Mrs Atkins would know what had happened, rather than being told as her husband's comrades came off the troop-ship.

This. And one should also keep in mind the heavy attrition of officers. There may be noone alive to write the condolence.