During WWII my father, an employee of the Federal government exempt from the draft but on "active duty" was at a training facility in far southern California. His mother died in Portland, Oregon.

He was handed a telegram from his brother by a camp messenger which notified him of Grandma's passing.

There was no other notification, and no thought of his interrupting training to attend the funeral 1200 miles away even if he had been able to find a way to get there.

It's only comparatively recently that one would find out, in a timely manner, of the death of a loved one, and even more recently that one could travel back in time for a funeral.

I'm not sure that it's wise to create more victims than we have. Clearly having a spouse and kids die while a person is away from home is beyond tragic, and yet in wars, even optional wars, families are killed all the time and the expectation is that they'll get over it.

Heck, they even have grief counselling for kids. In my high school, when a kid got drunk and killed himself in a car we felt bad and moved on. I'm not sure that wasn't better than expecting a bunch of grieving kids wandering around for a week.

Your scenario would be terrible, and not all that unusual.

Arf