Iraq Afghanistan Deployment Impact Fund Grant Profile:
Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS)

They were a mid-western couple, attending their first regional survivors seminar organized by the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) in Washington, D.C. About a hundred people had come together this January day in 2008 to share their grief over loved ones lost as a result of their military service. Introductions were offered around the room, as is the tradition. And then came the stories: A son killed in battle, another in a training accident. The Midwestern couple, too, offered their story of a son’s death, detailing his heroics in a town called Ar Ramadi, Iraq. Other stories of pain and grief followed. Several couples shared their anguish over a child’s suicide, a not uncommon story.

The group took a break. And when they gathered again this stolid Midwestern couple offered a startling confession: their son, too, had committed suicide. And until that day, just a little over a year after his death, the husband and wife had carried the burden of his suicide in secret, never sharing with even the closest of family members. That day, with the support of others who had experienced the same tragedy, they began to come to terms with what had happened, found solace for their pain and learned they could still find a way to honor their son’s short life.

Bonnie Carroll has no shortage of stories like these, stories of hope and healing. As the founder and director of TAPS, she knows firsthand the profound and powerful impact that can result when grief is shared. “It is amazingly healing,” she explains, “to meet someone else who truly understands your pain.”

Carroll started TAPS in 1992 after the death of her husband, Brig. Gen. Tom Carroll, in an Army C-12 plane crash. Seeing a void in the services available to the families and friends of those killed in service to their country, she took it upon herself to create her own peer-based emotional support program borrowing from best practices she observed studying similar programs around the country.

TAPS now holds numerous group events and gatherings nationwide. Its National Military Survivors Seminar for adults and Good Grief Camps for children bring families together from all over the country to take part in a supportive therapeutic environment. It connects them with the military, helps teach coping strategies and, most importantly, says Carroll, it “lets them know they are not alone in their grief.”

A grant of $551,585 from the Iraq-Afghanistan Deployment Impact Fund was the largest single grant the organization has received and it served as a springboard to launch the grief seminars nationally. Though the purpose of the grant was to hire a Child Services Specialist and conduct two more of the children’s Good Grief Camps, Carroll says demand has only increased. Nine Good Grief Camps were held in 2007. This year, two have been conducted so far and a total of 14 are scheduled. An additional eight have been requested and are currently under consideration. TAPS also has scheduled a series of “retreats” for siblings, parents and spouses. And Carroll says it’s not unusual for family members to travel from one state to another so they can continue to participate in the programs.

Individuals also have the opportunity to continue their involvement with TAPS by becoming peer mentors. “They are the ‘wounded healers’,” says Carroll. “And it is tremendously healing to take that painful experience and turn it around as a way to help others.”

When a survivor contacts TAPS for the first time the organization reaches out almost immediately by sending packets of helpful information overnight.
Some 10,000 of these care packages have been shipped out by TAPS. “It is a very empowering statement, telling them they are not alone,” says Carroll. “Crucial resources are put right at their fingertips and it lets them know their pain is being taken seriously by someone.”

And that is true for anyone whose life has been touched by a deceased service member. TAPS does not limit its assistance to “next of kin,” as is the Department of Defense’s mandate. Instead, anyone who that service member loved and left behind, who is grieving a loss, is invited to participate. They can attend seminars and events, become involved with blogs and chats, or even simply read the group’s magazine, as a way to help deal with their pain.

“Grief is not a mental illness,” notes Carroll. “It’s the price we pay for loving someone.”

back to the top

back to the IADIF grants list