Role conformity and creativity: Soldiers as administrators and caregivers after loss

Abstract Previous studies of loss in a military social context have focused on organizational and military unit responses to death and serious injury and bereavement among family members. Integrating structuralist and symbolic interactionist approaches, this study describes the demanding occupational role of army casualty assistance officers (CAOs). This unique military position has the concomitant obligations of administrator and caregiver to surviving family members following death, missing, or captured status of U.S. soldiers in both peace and wartime. The research design involved a qualitative content analysis of the role requirements described in CA 0 handbooks and responses to an open-ended questionnaire (N = 188) by CAOs who served the families of U.S. Army soldiers killed in three unrelated air disasters in Gander, Newfoundland; Lockerbie; Scotland, and Arizona, U.SA., between 1985 and 1990. CAOs are generally preoccupied with instrumental demands associated with their role. The role transcends th...