Major study of bereaved military families underway

Associated Press

With his wife and child close at hand, Army Maj. Chad Wriglesworth battled skin cancer for more than a year before dying at age 37.

“It was long and painful and awful,” said Aimee Wriglesworth, who believes the cancer resulted from exposure to toxic fumes in Iraq. Yet the 28-year-old widow from Bristow, Va., seized a chance to recount the ordeal and its aftermath to a researcher, hoping that input from her and her 6-year-old daughter might be useful to other grieving military families.

“To be able to study what we felt and what we’re going through — maybe this will help people down the line,” Wriglesworth said.

By the hundreds, other widows, widowers, parents, siblings and children are sharing accounts of their grief as part of the largest study ever of America’s military families as they go through bereavement. About 2,000 people have participated over the past three years, and one-on-one interviews will continue through February.

The federally funded project is being conducted by the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Maryland-based Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. The study is open to families of the more than 19,000 service members from all branches of the military who have died on active duty since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, regardless of whether the death resulted from combat, accident, illness, suicide or other causes.

“We’ve been impressed by how many people who’ve had this experience really want to let us know about it,” said the leader of the study, Dr. Stephen Cozza. “They want to talk about what happened — to provide information that will help them and people like them in the future.”

Cozza said a final report isn’t expected until 2017, and he is encouraging more survivors to sign up for interviews before the cutoff date in late February.