Aid-request disclosure policies differ - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Aid-request disclosure policies differ

If you seek emergency financial help from your military relief society, will your commander be told about it?

For soldiers, the answer is yes. For sailors, Marines and airmen, it’s no.

Army commanders need to know when their people seek help “so they can be involved in helping,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. Robert Foley, director of Army Emergency Relief, who said that helping troops avoid financial problems is a retention issue for leaders.

The other relief societies take a different approach.

“Every year, we re-emphasize it’s not necessary to go through the command,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. John Hopper Jr., chief executive officer of the Air Force Aid Society. “That’s not to say an airman won’t say he has to let his first sergeant know. But it’s not [our] policy.”

“We have been asked by leadership sometimes to require that commands be notified,” said retired Adm. Steve Abbot, president and chief executive officer of the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society. “We would never agree to make it a requirement.”

Still, Abbot said NMCRS “does not disparage that interest from the command … they are concerned about their sailors.”

Other nonprofit charities serving the military generally do not require a command to be notified when a service member asks for help.