Providing help in a difficult time

Harold Picard, left, and Jerry Murphy are two of the volunteers at the Retired Activities Center on the Seaplane Base of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. The center concentrates on helping surviving spouses of military retirees make their way through a maze of paperwork necessary to claim any benefits they may have coming. Kathy Reed photo

RETIRED ACTIVITIES CENTER URGES VETERANS TO PLAN AHEAD

A sign on the door of the Retired Activities Center — tucked away in the corner of Building 13 on Naval Air Station Whidbey Island’s Seaplane Base, next to the Disabled American Veterans office — reads “Take care of your widow while she’s still your wife.”

While that may seem a little strange, it makes sense to anyone who has made use of the services provided by the center — namely, helping the surviving spouse of a military retiree get his or her benefits in order.

“Back in ’81, the Secretary of Defense ordered each branch of the Armed Forces to set up an organization to take care of military widows,” explained Harold Picard, 83, a retired Navy Master Chief Parachute Rigger and longtime volunteer at the Retired Activities Center.

“Since that time, we’ve seen over 1,800 widows come through the door,” he said. “It’s a very rewarding job.”

The role the RAC plays following the death of a military retiree can be more than a little helpful to a surviving spouse. Picard and the other volunteers see mostly women, although men are also able to take advantage of the services offered. The trained volunteers start with the basics.

“We get the Social Security office on the line and hand them the phone,” Picard said.

Contacting Social Security, Picard said, is probably the single most important thing a surviving spouse can do. It gets the ball rolling on all the other business-related items a widow or widower must attend to.

“The VA gets a little tangled. There’s a lot of ifs, ands and buts involved,” said Picard, describing various programs such as government life insurance, burial benefits and survivor benefits, to name a few.

A sign on the door of the Retired Activities Center on NAS Whidbey Island urges retirees to take care of their spouses by making preparations early.

Pre-planning, said Picard, helps make a difficult time a little easier.

If some of the paperwork is done in advance, the process may move a little more smoothly when the time comes. Either way, the volunteers at RAC will be on hand to help.

“We advise people to get all their ducks in a row, don’t wait,” he said. “Some people come in and they know everything and some people know absolutely nothing.”

While Picard stresses the volunteers in the RAC are not lawyers, he said they all have a good amount of experience dealing with the necessary paperwork to help get widows and widowers the benefits to which they’re entitled. They try to do it all with a smile on their face.

“We try to keep things light — it’s a bad time,” Picard said. “We try to make people comfortable when they come in.”

Picard, who has volunteered at the center for 20 years, said they are in need of people to help.

Down to just six “dedicated volunteers,” as he put it, they are unable to provide staffing for some of the center’s posted hours. The lack of help is a bit ironic.

“Most of us (volunteers) are older retirees, but we die,” he said.