'John Doe' Printer Anonymous For Now

[unhappycamper]

'John Doe' Printer Anonymous For Now
January 08, 2009
Military.com|by Bryant Jordan

The Army adjutant general again apologized today to thousands of families of fallen troops for a letter sent out to them yet addressed to "Dear John Doe," but Brig. Gen. Reuben Jones declined to identify the contractor who printed the letters.

"We're reviewing all facets of this case and right now the priority is on the families," he said. " 'Who shot John' is part of it (but) that will take time to review it. We're not part of the contracting arm. We are the part that connects with the families."

The letters were sent out in December from the U.S. Army Human Resources Command's Casualty and Mortuary Affairs Center in Alexandria, Va., and included the names of private organizations offering to help families of fallen troops.

The casualty affairs center already issued a formal apology to the families. In addition, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. is sending a personal note to each of the families, Army spokesman Paul Boyce said Wednesday.

Jones today said responses from family members have ranged "from very disappointed to those who thought it was kind of humorous. However, it is not humorous to us. We work hard to build trust and relationships" with these families.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/john-doe-printer-anonymous-for-now.html?col=1186032369115

[Ian David]

1. This is much worse than the "Rich Bastard" and "Rabbi" letters.

Dear Rich Bastard

Claim: A test message slips into a live mailing, resulting in each prospective customer's being greeted with the salutation "Dear Rich Bastard."

Status: Undetermined.

Example: {Collected on the Internet, 1997}

The National Westminster Bank in England admitted last month that it keeps personal information about its customers — such as their political affiliation — on computer. But now Computer Weekly reveals that a financial institution, sadly unnamed, has gone one better and moved into the realm of personal abuse.

The institution decided to mass-mail 2000 of its richest customers, inviting them to buy extra services. One of its computer programmers wrote a program to search through the databases and select its customers automatically. He tested the program with an imaginary customer called Rich Bastard.

Unfortunately, an error resulted in all 2000 letters being addressed "Dear Rich Bastard". The luckless programmer was subsequently fired.

Origins: According to a bit in a 1993 New Scientist magazine "Feedback" column, this story supposedly dates to a 1993 article in Computer Weekly. But other
than Computer Weekly's publication of this tale, there's no supporting evidence for it, and no other mainstream press publication carried anything about this mailing.

That's not to say mess-ups don't occasionally find their way into mass mailings — they do. A situation similar to the legend occurred for real when U.S. vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro's computer sent out letters thanking supporters for their help in her 1984 campaign. Supporters with the title "Mrs." found themselves addressed as "Rabbi", while all those with the title "Mr." were promoted to "Colonel". Someone performing data entry had mistyped the numeric code for certain fields, requiring 5,000 letters of apology to be sent out to correct the gaffe.

Yet another related tale, this one also true. A Wells Fargo EquityLine statement of 2 February 1988 carried the following message at the bottom:
You owe your soul to the company store. Why not owe your home to Wells Fargo? An equity advantage loan can help you spend what would have been your children's inheritance.

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Last updated: 3 January 2007

The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/business/consumer/bastard.asp