HOUSTON, June 18 (UPI) —
A Houston veteran is going through the battle of a lifetime while trying to convince the Department of Veterans Affairs that he’s not dead.
Former Marine Joe Morris was wrongly classified as deceased on April 1 and his parents even received a condolence letter from the government; his wife is still getting them.
"My mom called me up and said, ‘Hey, you’re dead.’ I said, ‘No, I’m not,’" Morris told KPRC.
Morris, who served two tours in Iraq, had been getting a disability check related to his service for seven years until something went wrong in April. He contacted VA officials on April 14 after his check didn’t come, but apparently that wasn’t enough to prove that he was still breathing.
In addition to the issue with the checks, the VA also notified the Social Security Administration that Morris had died, making the process of buying a home much more difficult.
"Now it’s hard to get a loan for a home because none of the credit agencies have me as alive. They have me as deceased," Morris said. "I want it corrected. I want somebody to let the Social Security Administration know I’m still alive. I don’t want this to happen to anybody else,"
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