The issue that gave rise to the regulations first caught public attention after the five Sullivan brothers were all killed when the USS Juneau was sunk during World War II. The policy was enacted as law in 1948. No nominally peacetime restriction was in place until 1964 during the Vietnam War; in 1971, Congress amended the law to include not only the sole surviving son or daughter, but also any son or daughter who had a combat-related death in the family. Since then, each branch of the military has made its own policies with regard to separating immediate family members.
Examples
Before the Sole Survivor Policy was officially implemented in 1948, several occasions occurred when sole survivors were excused from active service. In World War II, the Borgstrom brothers, Elmer, Clyde, and twins Rolon and Rulon, were killed within a few months of each other in 1944. Their parents then successfully petitioned for their son Boyd, who was also on active duty, to be released from service. Their sixth son, Elton, who had not yet reached conscription age, was exempted from military service. The three Butehorn brothers of Bethpage, New York, Charles, Joseph, and Henry, were all deployed during World War II. After Charles was killed in action in France in 1944 and Joseph was killed in action in the Pacific in 1945, Henry, who was serving with the Army Air Forces in Italy, was ordered home by the War Department. The "Veterans of Foreign Wars" post in Bethpage is named after their sacrifice. In the case of the Niland brothers, U.S. intelligence believed that all but one of four siblings were killed in action. The eldest brother, Technical Sergeant Edward Niland, of the U.S. Army Air Forces, was later found to have been held in a prisoner of war camp in Burma. The Academy Award-winning film Saving Private Ryan, directed by Steven Spielberg, was loosely based on the Niland brothers' story. Both the Borgstrom and Butehorn incidents occurred before the Sole Survivor Policy was put into effect in 1948. They, along with the deaths of all of the Sullivan brothers in 1942, helped lead to it. Jason and Nathan Hubbard joined the Army after their brother Jared had died in Iraq in 2004. In 2007, Nathan died in a helicopter crash. Military officials ordered Jason home shortly after. Jeremy, Ben, and Beau Wise served in active combat roles in the Afghan War. Jeremy, a former Navy SEAL, was at a CIA base as a military contractor and was killed in 2009 when a suicide bomberattacked the base. Later in 2011, Ben, an Army Special Forcescombat medic, was seriously wounded in Afghanistan and died of his injuries at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. Beau was deployed in Afghanistan with the Marines at that time and was immediately relieved of combat duties and returned to the United States.
Regulations
This policy protects "only sons/daughters", "the last son/daughter to carry the family name", and "sole surviving sons/daughters" only during peacetime. In times of war or national emergency as declared by the US Congress, this provision does not apply to any of the above. Also, this provision is voluntary, meaning that the member wishing to be sent home has to request for the policy to be applied and get their application approved. Furthermore, it does not apply strictly to the sole surviving son but also to all surviving sons. Members of the Armed Forces who are not eligible for Department of Defense Directive 1315.15, "Special Separation Policies for Survivorship," include those who currently have court-martial charges pending against them or those who have been convicted by court-martial. The policy was changed to allow both enlisted and officers to apply for this discharge. If members of the Armed Forces re-enlist or voluntarily extend their active duty beyond the requirement after having been notified of a death in the family, those members automatically become ineligible.
