Sally Mae wants to collect from dead Marine's family

Marine Second Lieutenant Ian McVey. (Courtesy of the McVey family)

"What bothers me most is we say our country is at war, but it's only the soldiers, the Marines, and their families who are at war. We're not in this together." John McVey

Ungrateful Sallie Mae

By Kevin Cullen
Globe Columnist / December 18, 2008

Ian McVey could have been anything. He chose to be a Marine.

It is not a path that most kids from Weston would take, but Ian Thomas McVey was not most kids. He coasted at Weston High. But when he transferred to The Rivers School, where his father taught Latin, he got serious and blossomed.

One day, he told his father, "I want to join the Marines."

His father said he was proud of him, but had one caveat: go to college first.

Ian McVey went off to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in upstate New York, graduating last year with a double major in computer science and computer engineering. He spurned a lucrative career in the private sector to join the Marine Corps.

"I have wanted to be a Marine for as long as I can remember," he wrote in his officer training application. "After September 11, 2001, I knew more than ever that this was what I wanted to do. I wanted to serve my country, and after the attack I knew I wanted to join the Marines' ranks and go into harm's way so others would not have to."

Last summer, Second Lieutenant Ian McVey got his orders. He was to go to Iraq as a platoon commander with the Second Combat Engineer Battalion of the Second Marine Division.

On July 19, not long before his unit was to ship out, McVey's motorcycle was blindsided by a car driven by an 84-year-old woman near Camp Lejeune, N.C. He was killed instantly. He was 23 years old.
click link above for more

Did Sallie Mae get bailout money too? If they did, then why couldn't they forgive this Marine's debt since he used his education to serve the nation? What about the Marines making sure the right thing is done for the sake of this Marine's family?

UPDATE


College lender to forgive debts of fallen local Marine
December 18, 2008 06:04


Sallie Mae, the nation's biggest provider of student loans, said today it would forgive the debts of a US Marine from Weston who was killed in an accident last summer shortly before he was scheduled to be deployed to Iraq.

Officials at Sallie Mae said they learned about the plight of the family of Marine Second Lieutenant Ian McVey in a column by Kevin Cullen published today in The Boston Globe.