Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
b. Unless there's been a change, soldiers are required to first approach the American Red Cross if financial help is required. If the ARC declines and if the the solider demonstrates potential hardship for which he essentially is not totally responsible as opposed to merely needing or wanting some money, the AER will then generally lend him the minimum amount to get by.
Today, the Red Cross has a fund set up for each major command (Division level or equivalent) that they can produce fund sites and grants from. This is usually only used for OCONUS situations – either at a forward deployed location or if the emergency is on foreign soil. It's essentially a "free plane ticket" program for Soldiers who receive Red Cross messages. I've also seen it used for your more "civilian" Red Cross situations – a house burns down, flooding, etc. but obviously only required when there isn't insurance paying out immediatly.

Been my observation that about a third of troops get money from the ARC, another third get if from AER and the remaining third could not satisfy either the chain of command, the ARC or AER there was a need and they were not at fault.
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Note also that the relative number of such operations has declined over the last 20 years or so due to the fact that Citibank (and others) would give a PFC a $10K or even more credit limit on his credit card (also with usurious rates) even if he already had a car he couldn't afford.
The primary reason why there aren't more AER grants, like Ken suggested, its because of credit cards. Your typical AER Grant scenarios where you need an expensive car part, the baby needs formula, a dingo stole your refrigerator, etc are easily mitigated by Mastercard. The Soldiers who come to AER come there either because they have exhausted all other means of payment or it’s a situation where credit isn't accepted.

Another big reason why there aren't many AER Grants is because that "at fault" is such a difficult term to dissect. The overwhelming majority of AER assistance requests I see are because of past-due bills. So why are the bills past due? Mostly because of poor money management skills or Soldiers getting into financial obligations they can't support long term. Most of our Soldiers are one big power bill away from insolvency. It's sad, but it's true. In these cases, AER will not give a grant; only a loan and only to cover the amount required.

As the article highlights, this causes the percentage of loans to grants to appear out of balance. However, it’s a direct response to the needs of the people they serve as outlined by the rules they set for how they distribute their own money.