Veteran has to prove he isn't dead yet

False government death reports leave people in the lurch
BY SUSAN DEMAR LAFFERTY
The phrase “dead man walking” doesn’t tell the full story of what Tremayne Gray once had to go through.

The Country Club Hills man also was a “dead man” searching for a job, filling out an application — and being turned down.

Gray was 20 years old at the time, and his prospective employer, in conducting a background search, found that Gray was dead.

“I was so stunned,” said Gray, now 35 and still very much alive.

Gray did not get that job or others he applied for shortly afterward. Who wants to hire a dead person?

But Gray’s plight is similar to that of thousands of Americans who mistakenly are reported dead every year by the Social Security Administration or other federal agencies. And Illinois has one of the highest rates of making such grave mistakes, according to a recent report by Scripps Howard News Service.

“It’s weird,” South Chicago Heights resident Jeffrey Zych said of his similar experience with “death.” “It’s weird that you could stand there in front of someone and they would not take your word that you were alive.
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False government death reports leave people in the lurch