Dead soldier hit with parking bill
Families of soldiers left with car fees
By JOE WARMINGTON The Toronto Sun
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2009/01/30/8200556-sun.htmlArticle Link
PETAWAWA -- The last thing you'd think we would want our soldiers in Afghanistan worrying about is if they die there, will a $250 cancellation fee have to be paid to get their car out of a storage facility and returned to their family.
And yet this is what a lot of them and their families were worrying about this week -- when word got out that a $250 cancellation fee had to be paid for a contract broken by Pte. Michael Freeman.
The contract was indeed broken. But there was a pretty good reason.
Freeman, of Peterborough, was killed in action by a roadside bomb on Boxing Day.
In the end, grieving families are compensated but the fact is at their most vulnerable moment they still have to deal with a $250 bill and a cold bureaucracy.
"It's disgusting," military wife Wendy Leduc said.
No word on whether this would happen to Taliban fighters.
Needless to say, there are people here on the base outraged -- as are some in the war zone in Afghanistan.
"There are guys e-mailing their wives telling them to get their cars out of there," said one military insider.
There is a Facebook page dedicated to this, with dozens of angry comments and puzzled people.
How could this be? It seems heartless. The family has to see their son brought home in a box and then be told he's violating a storage contract?
"It's just wrong," said Karen Beauparlant last night at the Tim Hortons on the base which is abuzz with a mini-controversy swirling here all week.
"What can you say about something like that?" adds her friend Kristen Vincent. "It's not fair."
Both of their husbands will deploy to Afghanistan next year. "We worry about them every day," said Beauparlant. "We don't need this."
Calls to the owner of privately owned Carbank, who has a contract with the base to store cars, were not returned and a woman answering the phone for businessman Kevin MacWilliams said, "the base commander speaks for him."
Lieut.-Col. Bill Moore, base commander, CFB Petawawa, did issue a base-wide memo to "clarify" what has become a hot topic in a place which has had to endure the loss of 24 soldiers during the war -- and has many men and women stationed there still today.
He wrote: "Mr. Kevin MacWilliams, the owner of Carbank storage, has dealt with approximately two dozen incidents whereby the car owners were killed during operations. He incurs a cost of $250 each time this happens. The removal fee is a legitimate fee which Director of Compensation Benefits Administration (DCBA), not the family, pays for. It covers an incurred cost to Mr. MacWilliams and is part of a legitimate contract established with DND."
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Families of soldiers left with car fees
By JOE WARMINGTON The Toronto Sun
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2009/01/30/8200556-sun.htmlArticle Link
PETAWAWA -- The last thing you'd think we would want our soldiers in Afghanistan worrying about is if they die there, will a $250 cancellation fee have to be paid to get their car out of a storage facility and returned to their family.
And yet this is what a lot of them and their families were worrying about this week -- when word got out that a $250 cancellation fee had to be paid for a contract broken by Pte. Michael Freeman.
The contract was indeed broken. But there was a pretty good reason.
Freeman, of Peterborough, was killed in action by a roadside bomb on Boxing Day.
In the end, grieving families are compensated but the fact is at their most vulnerable moment they still have to deal with a $250 bill and a cold bureaucracy.
"It's disgusting," military wife Wendy Leduc said.
No word on whether this would happen to Taliban fighters.
Needless to say, there are people here on the base outraged -- as are some in the war zone in Afghanistan.
"There are guys e-mailing their wives telling them to get their cars out of there," said one military insider.
There is a Facebook page dedicated to this, with dozens of angry comments and puzzled people.
How could this be? It seems heartless. The family has to see their son brought home in a box and then be told he's violating a storage contract?
"It's just wrong," said Karen Beauparlant last night at the Tim Hortons on the base which is abuzz with a mini-controversy swirling here all week.
"What can you say about something like that?" adds her friend Kristen Vincent. "It's not fair."
Both of their husbands will deploy to Afghanistan next year. "We worry about them every day," said Beauparlant. "We don't need this."
Calls to the owner of privately owned Carbank, who has a contract with the base to store cars, were not returned and a woman answering the phone for businessman Kevin MacWilliams said, "the base commander speaks for him."
Lieut.-Col. Bill Moore, base commander, CFB Petawawa, did issue a base-wide memo to "clarify" what has become a hot topic in a place which has had to endure the loss of 24 soldiers during the war -- and has many men and women stationed there still today.
He wrote: "Mr. Kevin MacWilliams, the owner of Carbank storage, has dealt with approximately two dozen incidents whereby the car owners were killed during operations. He incurs a cost of $250 each time this happens. The removal fee is a legitimate fee which Director of Compensation Benefits Administration (DCBA), not the family, pays for. It covers an incurred cost to Mr. MacWilliams and is part of a legitimate contract established with DND."
More on link