--- title: As the Wars End, Changes Come in Training Troops to Notify Families of Military Deaths description: Battlefield deaths decline, but military still has to bring grim news canonical: https://time.com/72839/as-the-wars-end-changes-come-in-training-troops-to-notify-families-of-military-deaths/ author: Mark Thompson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-23T01:12:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T07:26:37.277Z article:section: Politics og:title: As the Wars End, Changes Come in Training Troops to Notify Families of Military Deaths og:description: Battlefield deaths decline, but military still has to bring grim news og:url: https://time.com/72839/as-the-wars-end-changes-come-in-training-troops-to-notify-families-of-military-deaths/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7be267443922c0b0/69868bf21eebf7a9d3370898/size0-army-mil-2008-05-09-071736.jpg?branch=production&width=640&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 640 og:image:height: 360 og:image:alt: size0-army.mil-2008-05-09-071736 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: As the Wars End, Changes Come in Training Troops to Notify Families of Military Deaths twitter:description: Battlefield deaths decline, but military still has to bring grim news twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7be267443922c0b0/69868bf21eebf7a9d3370898/size0-army-mil-2008-05-09-071736.jpg?branch=production&width=640&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # As the Wars End, Changes Come in Training Troops to Notify Families of Military Deaths > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=01c440a1-ce15-4bec-9250-41508567d239&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) by [Mark Thompson](https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Apr 23, 2014 1:12 AM UTC  Army photo by [Mark Thompson](https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Apr 23, 2014 1:12 AM UTC The wars are nearly over. So it is time for the U.S. military to reboot for one of its most somber tasks: Telling next-of-kin their loved one has died in the service of his or her country. Over the past 13 years, casualty-notification officers have had to take that long walk up to a family’s front door, and make that dreaded knock that changes everything, 6,803 times. But with battlefield deaths down to a trickle, the Marines are [seeking](https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=f83dd5b9214a43a697363fc2d16b0a9f&tab=core&%5Fcview=0) a new video to help train its Casualty Assistance Calls Officers (each service has its own title for the job) for a future where more will die in peacetime accidents than combat. “The current scenario is 100% war-related,” the corps says in a notice posted Tuesday. “A more current version is required to meet today’s situations.” The Marines say they want their new training video to include cases involving: * _Marine’s death due to a training incident_ * _Dual active-duty spouse with complicated marital issues_ * _Divorced Parents_ * _Dealing with children_ * _Updated grief/trauma awareness_ * _Self-care for CACOs_ That last one is critical. This is a tough mission, where raw human emotions run the gamut. “I’ve picked family members off the floor,” Army chaplain Captain Gregory Broderick said in an Army News Service [story](http://www.army.mil/article/121623/Casualty%5Fnotification%5Fprocess%5Femphasizes%5F) last month. “I’ve sat and held them as they’ve rocked and cried… I did one recently where they kicked us out of the house. They were so mad, not at us but at their son,” he confided. “I’ve been spit on as well.” “You’ve caught them at their worst day,” added Army Major Mark East, the top chaplain at the service’s Human Resources Command. With the war in Iraq over for more than two years, and with the shrinking number of U.S. combat troops still in Afghanistan slated to leave by year’s end (a total of 33,000 remain), the number of those killed in battle, thankfully, is way down (17 so far this year). March [marked](http://time.com/45160/zero-us-fatalities-iraq-afghanistan-11-years/) the first month without war casualties in 11 years (unfortunately, [April](http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=16651&source=GovDelivery) won’t be the second). When casualties spiked in Iraq in 2006, some families [criticized](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/07/us/07notify.html?pagewanted=all&%5Fr=0) the way the military informed them of their relatives’ deaths. That led Congress to [demand](http://time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/kia-2006.pdf) additional training for those making the notifications, and detailed Pentagon [regulations](http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/130018p.pdf) on how it is to be done. Army Major Brent Fogleman did casualty notifications around that time, after a stint in Afghanistan. The notification job was “by far, yes” his toughest assignment. “There were some guys that couldn’t do it… if they couldn’t do it we didn’t want them to do it,” he [said](http://nation.time.com/2012/05/16/learning-how-to-say-we-regret-to-inform-you-that/). “That’s not something you cannot do well.” Families used to learn of their loved one’s fate in terse “regret to inform you” telegrams. That changed in Vietnam, when the Army began dispatching casualty-notification officers and chaplains to deliver the sad news personally. The service now gives its casualty-notification teams four hours to get to that front door after the Army’s personnel shop has received word of a death. These days, they’re in a race to that door with Facebook and Twitter. 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