• Casualty Reporting.  The Defense Casualty Information Processing System is a single standard system supporting uniform procedures, accounting, and accurate reporting of casualties, ensuring support of family members, benefits tracking, coordination of mortuary affairs, and return of personal effects/human remains.
• Personal Casualty Notification. A notification team, consisting of at least two uniformed individuals, contacts the surviving family members as identified on the service member’s Record of Emergency Data.
• Assignment of a Casualty Assistance Officer or Representative.  This representative works directly with the family as long as assistance is needed or requested by the family.
• Casualty Assistance.  This includes transportation assistance, applying for and receiving benefits and entitlements; obtaining copies of records, reports, and investigations; legal assistance (including tax issues); ensuring receipt of personal effects; mortuary and funeral honors; relocation, including shipment of household goods; liaising with other federal agencies; providing information and referral, including bereavement counseling and spiritual support; and other assistance as requested by the surviving family.
• Transportation.   This includes transportation of family members to bedside for wounded, ill, and injured service members, transportation of family members to burial for active duty fatalities, transportation to unit or installation memorial services, and transportation of family members to Dover Air Force Base, Dover, Delaware, to observe the dignified transfer of loved ones who die in the theater of combat operations.
• Comprehensive Guides.  Guides are available for all primary next-of-kin (PNOK) of active duty fatalities:
  • A Survivor's Guide to Benefits, Taking Care of Our Families, This guide details the federal benefits available to families of the fallen, to include coordinated benefit information from the DoD, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Social Security Administration. 
  • The Days Ahead, Essential Papers for Families of a Fallen Service Member, a comprehensive binder organizing tool designed to assist families in the days following the death of their loved one.

Eligibility

Casualty assistance services are available to the person most closely related to the deceased service member (the PNOK), typically the service member’s spouse. 

Availability

These programs are available worldwide on military installations and through distance methods when the surviving PNOK is not located near a military installation.

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