GAO: Goals Needed for Casualty-Assistance Services

The five armed services could do a better job of making sure that survivors of service members who die on duty are aware of the services to which they are entitled, the government’s chief watchdog agency stated. According to a June 28 report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) acknowledged that casualty-assistance officers resolve many complaints leveed by survivors. The GAO report stated that the services still need to establish “goals and metrics for outreach, without which some survivors remain unaware of the casualty assistance available to them.” The report also stated that the Defense Department administers a survey of survivors, but response has been too low – at 10 percent – for officials to draw any viable conclusions. Between January 2002 and November 2015, 17.911 service members have died while on active duty. They left behind more than 24,000 surviving dependents.