A very close friend of mine is currently in the top half of his 3rd tour in OEF. He has been mulling over if he should reenlist in a few months or get out and go to school. I voiced that he has made tremendous sacrifices thus far and has earned the right to get out and go to school if he so chooses. Of course he is somewhat reluctant to get out because it’s all he’s done since graduating high school.
Well during our discussion listing the pro’s and con’s of reenlisting he told me a story of a soldier that was KIA at the beginning of his tour this year.
I am not sure of the validity of the following story, and I make no claims in its favor, just simply passing on what I was told.
The soldier was occupying the gunners hatch in an MRAP when the vehicle struck an IED. He was blown from the vehicle. The vehicle itself was blasted into the air and came to land upside down on top of the ejected soldier. My friend then explained how the soldiers family has been denied SGLI benefits after it was determined he was not wearing anchor/saftey straps. Apparently had the straps been used, he would not have been ejected from the vehicle thus saving his life. Despite in that case, the 14 ton vehicle landing on its roof, out of which the now safe and secure soldier would have been protruding.
Have you heard any such scuttlebutt making its way around? Is there any validity to the Army denying SGLI benefits to fallen soldiers? I have heard no circumstances in which a soldiers family was denied benefits in any event.
I understand if you are involved in a motorcycle accident back in the states and are not wearing the military required high-vis vest, boots, gloves and helmet they have the ability to deny medical coverage. But I would think this is much different than that…
I do not have the soldiers name, however, I am in the process of trying to obtain it now.
Once again, I claim no truth to this, I am simply presenting the story as I was told and am asking if this may be true.
Sounds like a rummor to me. I have like many of you seen how this system works and I have never seen anyone denied. Had a friend back before this all started run out in fron of a car drunk off his ass and his family got paid. There was no question as to weather of not he was drunk or ran in to traffic just a check thats it.
Sounds like scare tactics by senior enlisted to get the troops to listen to them.
We heard the same thing in regards to ear pro. “If you are blown up and its discovered you didn’t have hearing protection in, the VA will not pay you for your hearing loss. It happened to a Marine in blah blah blah”
Yea, that threat is used by everyone. I’ve heard it about my shorty helmet, side plates, basically every piece of PPE imaginable.
My response is always that my friend Bill O’Reilly will make sure my family gets paid. I have heard of people who die doing negligent shit at home not getting paid, but there’s no way a service member is going to be KIA and get denied their SGLI.
I heard similar rumors and its not true. SGLI is not determined by the soldier wearing every piece of kit he is issued or told to use. SGLI is not determined by their chain of command either, and its not even administered by the DOD. As soon as they receive notification of a soldiers death they will pay immediately based on what the soldier signed up for. It is not based on their COC saying if the soldier had every piece of kit on.
To me that would be the same as a soldier being killed by mortar fire on the fob while he was sleeping… and since he didn’t have his gear on his family doesn’t get paid…
Bullshit. And to add to that. I have a friend who committed suicide this past August. He was a senior NCO in the Air Force reserve and civilian firefighter. His SGLI paid out and so did his civilian policy.
In addition if you go to the SGLI website it states somewhere that they pay out under almost any circumstances.
Sounds like BS to me. From what I My SGLI will be paid out to whoever I name as the beneficiaries even if I were killed on my way home from my regular (non-military) job today. This is why we pay into it (no, SGLI is not provided to the Soldier for free). The caveat here is this is only true to Reservists and National Guardsmen who perform the minimum number of drills in a given year or up to 120-days after mobilization or active duty (see the website below).