Mom critical of military policy receives letter to her son back marked DECEASED

[Bluebear]

MINNEAPOLIS — A critic of the U.S. military policy is suing the federal government because a letter that she wrote to her serviceman son stationed in Iraq was returned with "DECEASED" errantly stamped on it in red letters.

The lawsuit filed last month in Minneapolis federal court by Joan Najbar, of Duluth, Minn., claims that "as a result of receiving the letter indicating that her son was dead, Ms. Najbar suffered emotional distress with physical manifestations."

Najbar, whose son Sam Eininger was serving with the National Guard when the letter was returned in 2006, is seeking relief from damages including emotional distress, loss of income, attorneys fees and other expenses and "additional damages to be proven at trial."...

Eininger, who spent 22 months in Iraq and will wrap up his time in the Guard in March after six years, said he has never been given an explanation for his premature demise, speculating, "Just some (jerk) pulling a prank, I guess."

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/national/midwest/view/20091201errant_deceased_letter_prompts_soldiers_mom_to_sue/srvc=home&position=recent

[Contrary1]

1. Does the post office even have a "Deceased" stamp?

Something about this doesn't sound right to me.

[Bluebear]

2. photo:

[Contrary1]

3. That doesn't prove the post office stamped it. n/t

[Bluebear]

4. I'm not offering it as evidence, you asked about the stamp :)

[Occulus]

5. I don't *think* we use that stamp.

I could be wrong; I have no knowledge of how the markup clerks do their jobs. They have several stamps, though, such as "Return to Sender" or "Address Unknown",or "Additional Postage Required", for example, and they're usually in red ink, but I don't recall ever seeing a "Deceased" stamp, and I've been a postal employee for years.

[Contrary1]

7. I just talked to my brother who recently retired from the post office after 41 years...

He told me that many years ago they did have a multi-purpose stamp that had "Deceased" on it. It's not used anymore. He also said that the letter would have made it through to the military postal system, which has nothing to do with the USPS.

[roguevalley]

10. God bless her. I doubt the post office did this. I bet some blowhard

in the military did it. God bless you and your family, honey.

[Cass]

6. Wouldn't that have been stamped by the military?

How is the Post Office going to know that a soldier is deceased? It's not as if a mail carrier attempted to deliver the letter to her son in Iraq. The military would have had to inform the Post Office somehow that he was deceased (mistakenly), wouldn't they?

[Solly Mack]

8. I got a call once from a clique of military wives who decided

it would be great fun to tell me my husband was dead. One called, the others listened in...the caller pretended to be someone who would know such information. I am well informed about the NOK notification process so I didn't fall for it...but many would have and the whole thing was just plain sick and cruel.

Same group of trash who declared me a "witch" because I wouldn't allow prayers before meetings. The meeting group holds a Congressional mandate and as such must maintain a separation of church and state....and I insisted on that separation.

I'm guessing someone in the military stamped that...such a stamp does exist to use on paperwork & such for the deceased.

[Vinca]

9. That happened to me when an elderly aunt died in a nursing home.

I had been sending her cards and packages because I live too far away to visit and when she died they wrote "deceased" on the package and returned it. Considering my name and address were on the outside and I'm in the phone book, you would have thought a little common decency would have prevailed.