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AR15.COM
7/16/2005 8:36:09 PM EDT
If you are listed  as MIA instead of KIA  does the military still send your  paychecks to  your  family until  listed otherwise?
7/17/2005 2:41:45 AM EDT
[#1]
Basically, yes.  It gets all sorts of complicated after certain time frames, but yeah your familiy still gets your paycheck for the most part.

If you get declared KIA there's death bennies, and the paycheck gets cut off.  If you later get found alive (like you turn up a prisoner in a camp when they thought you had died), they pay you the back pay and promotions in line with your contemporaries.  

Alot of the actual benifits coem from different parts of the govt, so the regs are different depending on who's money it is.  For instance, the survivor gets money from the Army, and Social Security, and SGLI is considered differently than pay, etc.  So who gives you what and when is complicated.

With DNA on record, it will cut down on the possible MIA's to those that you simply can't find any trace of.  Before you could have six guys MIA, and five sets of remains, but not be able to positively identify them, so you'd still have 6 MIA's.  Now you're more likely to have 5 KIA's and 1 MIA if you have five sets of remains.

Ross
7/17/2005 3:40:44 AM EDT
[#2]
When the .gov changed Cmdr Speicher's status from KIA to MIA in 2000(?) (he died in the first gulf war...apparently), they paid his wife ALL of the back pay he would have gotten for the last 10 years...even though she was remarried and everything...he did have some kids though so I guess it was useful...

I wonder if she had to pay back lifeinsurance? I doubt it.
7/17/2005 6:15:14 AM EDT
[#3]
IIRC, didn't Jimmy Carter declare all the Viet Nam MIAs status changed to KIA so that the families could get the death benefits and move on with their lives?