There is always the possibility of hiring a lawyer or a private investigator to help. This can be expensive and ineffective, however. If you are next of kin to the deceased military person, you have rights which will come to play in making direct requests. If you feel that you are endowed with a basic inner strength and are sufficiently motivated, I would suggest that you give it a try.

First, PREPARE YOURSELF MENTALLY. Be aware that the military, like all large organizations, will use techniques designed to wear you down. This may take a long time and include a lot of frustration. You can give yourself a time limit, after which you will no longer work at getting information on your own, or you may have the attitude that you will work at it until you need a break and then resume your efforts when you feel more up to it. You may decide to hire someone to help you after a specific period of time. At any rate, don’t expect that this will be quick or trouble free.

DISTANCE YOURSELF from the problem as much as you possibly can. You will need to be as factual, concise, and unemotional as you can be when dealing with representatives of the Military by phone or letter. Try to keep your crying time separate from this process as much as possible.

THE MECHANICS:

You will need a copy of the death certificate and/or the Report of Casualty in order to make the initial requests. These should have been furnished by the Casualty Officer assigned to your loved one's case. Make multiple copies and have them on hand to use as needed. Be sure to place the originals in a safe place. Never send out an original of these documents.

If you’ve gotten to the point where you need this part of the advice, you should have begun to ORGANIZE all of the letters, notes, and telephone numbers that you generated in Part One. Make a plan in writing of what you want to accomplish.

Rather than looking for names and phone numbers written hastily on scraps of paper, make a notebook or a word processing program work for you now. Although you think you’ll never need to reach a contact again, or be able to tell someone else who you contacted and the date and time and what was said in the conversation, that may not prove to be true.

Here’s what I do: I keep a journal strictly for the purpose of documenting my investigation. Each day’s date appears at the beginning of each entry. I note who I contacted or who contacted me, position and/or rank, department, location, phone number, and address. This is also cross referenced in an electronic address book on my computer. I write down all pertinent parts of the conversation or what the letter is conveying to me in general. Unfortunately, I did not start doing this until about a year after my son’s death. Nevertheless, I am up to 120 typewritten pages of notes five years later.

This journal/address book system has come in very handy when someone asks me if I’ve tried contacting “so-and-so” or if I’ve made a FOIA request for certain information. You would be surprised how difficult it is to remember specific information when you’ve made hundreds of contacts. I bold the names of people mentioned in the journal so that I can quickly locate information about them when asked to.

All letters of request and FOIA requests are copied and filed. When they are answered, the answer letter is clipped with the request letter. I’ll talk about APPEALING FOIA replies in this section. The same system applies to FOIA Appeals and replies.

Sort all the military records you have in your possession and keep them in separate files, label them for easy access.

This page is very much "under construction." Stay tuned for the development of the following sections:

LINE OF DUTY INVESTIGATION

ENLISTING THE HELP OF YOUR US CONGRESSMAN AND SENATOR

APPEALING FOIA DECISIONS

Advice for Those Who Have Lost Loved Ones to Violence