Something we don’t hear much about…..Grandparents raising their grandkids when their kids are killed in Iraq. Write to your congress people to urge passage of the Latham-Hagel legislation in support of grandparents raising children of deceased soldiers.

Army Pfc. Hannah McKinney’s young son, Todd, and new husband were waiting for her to come home from Iraq last September. But just weeks before they were to be reunited, McKinney, 20, was killed in action. Now her parents, Barbie and Matt Heavrin of Redlands, Calif., are raising two-year-old Todd, McKinney’s child from a previous relationship.

“Some days I’m overwhelmed with sadness thinking about Hannah,” says Barbie Heavrin. Despite the emotional devastation, grandparents and other relatives who are left to raise a loved one’s child don’t get the financial support from the government that a surviving parent would.

The Heavrins are rearing their grandson without the benefit of the $100,000 “death gratuity” the government gives to next-of-kin-defined as spouse or child-to offset the financial burden when a service member is killed. Nor did the Heavrins, who have been rearing Todd since their daughter’s deployment to Iraq, receive the $400,000 from group life insurance in which soldiers are automatically enrolled. McKinney had chosen her husband of less than a year as the beneficiary of both, despite the fact that he was not living with or caring for the toddler.

“You have an awful lot of grandparents who are caregivers while their children are deployed,” says Kathleen Moakler of the National Military Family Association in Alexandria, Va. Of the 3,131 soldiers killed in Iraq as of Feb. 3, a total of 143 were single parents, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

Listen to touching interview with the Heavrins, and read more at AARP Bulletin That’s right punk….. I said AARP! (that’s for Bat) Another great article in the AARP Bulletin is 12 Ways to Support Our Troops. Check it out!