Obituaries

Info for retired military/surviving spouse obituary searches

  We started searching online obituaries for retired military and surviving spouses in July 2020, after learning that the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard RAO did this and seeing how many they found.  The main general link we use is the Legacy.com website and then we look at numerous funeral home sites throughout CO.  Of course we are completely dependent on the obituary text to determine whether or not the deceased was a military retiree.  If we had access to retiree data we used to get from the Retiree Address Finder (RAF) database we could compare names to those from the RAF to make that determination, and find more retirees. 

When we find an obituary I post a “canned” condolence note online on the “Tribute Wall” (updating rank, service, etc. based on info in the obit). The condolence note text is below:

“The Buckley SFB military Retiree Activities Office (RAO) would like to offer our sincere condolences and our gratitude for (name/rank) service to our country in the (Service here).  If you would like help with any matters related to casualty assistance, Defense Finance & Accounting Service, Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP), Veterans Affairs (VA), etc. you can contact our office on Buckley SFB at 720-847-6693 or raobuckley@gmail.com.  The RAO is staffed by volunteers, all military retirees themselves, and our sole purpose is to provide assistance to any military retirees and surviving spouses/family members with anything related to their military service and/or benefits, in particular during difficult times such as this.  We are deeply sorry for your loss.

Steve Young

Lt Col, USAF, Ret

Director, Buckley SFB RAO”

  If they were in multiple Services, I list them all.  If the obituary indicates they were a higher-ranking officer/enlisted, they have special awards (Silver Star, Purple Heart, etc), flew lots of combat missions, etc., I will modify the text a bit, something like “… our sincere condolences and our gratitude for CMSgt Smith’s 28 years of distinguished service to our country in the Air Force.”  This is very subjective.

 When we get a call in response to the post we provide the customer (via e-mail) a copy of our casualty checklist, the DFAS casualty checklist, include some “canned” e-mail text with links to the VA, DFAS, VSOs, etc. and make sure to provide them with the name and number of their local Casualty Assistance Representative (CAR)/Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) Counselor.  If the contact is in response to a note we placed in an obit, I add the date of contact to our Excel obituary spreadsheet so I can track how “successful” the posts are.  In the years we have been doing this, about 10% of the postings result in a NOK contacting our office for help.

As mentioned, the main general search site I use is the Legacy.com website at the following link:  https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/search  First, I select the “Filter Options” icon on the right side of the page Below the “Find an Obituary” title (with First Name and Last Name under it).  Under the “Filter Options” you can fill out the following fields.

Search Within Results: in the “Type Keywords” field I type in a Service and do a separate search for each one: Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine, Guard.  There is probably a way to input them all at once and do a single search, but I don’t know for sure how to do that.  Once I have input the Service here, I go to the next field.

Publish Date: select what you want here.  I’m looking at obituaries every day so I start with “Yesterday” and then use “Today”, looking for each Service in each case. You can select 7 days, 30 days, a custom range or whatever.

Location: Under “All Countries” use drop down menu to select “United States of America”.  Under “Select a Region”, select your state.

Select “View Results”

I then look over the obituaries that come up.  If I find an obituary for a military retiree, I then look to see if it lists a specific funeral home that is handling the arrangements.  If a funeral home is listed, I go to the Funeral Home site to find the obituary and put the canned condolence note in the Tribute or whatever section.  If there is no funeral home I post the condolence in the comment field of the obituary of the Legacy site.

 I also try to post in obituaries of widows/widowers of military retirees and just modify the beginning of the condolence text slightly, something like:

“The Buckley SFB military Retiree Activities Office (RAO) would like to offer our sincere condolences on your loss.  From the obituary it appears (spouse name/rank) retired from the (service here).  If so, and you would like help with any matters related to casualty assistance, …”

 Since we started doing these searches, the number of casualty calls we get has increased significantly. The year before we started posting we had ~20 casualty calls.  Since then, we have had anywhere from 60 - 100 each year.  Since we started posting, casualty calls generally come in about #3 on our most frequent call list, behind ID cards and Gray Area retirees.

Here's our spreadsheet  Buckley Obituary Spreadsheet