Military Officers Association
of America
Cape Canaveral Chapter
PO Box 254186, Patrick AFB, FL 32925-4186
The Personal Affairs Committee of MOAACC will use this page to post informationbelieved to be of current interest or importance to the membership.Some material will be relatively permanent in nature such as references and formats to help members get their personal affairs in order and keep them updated and current. Often this will consist of downloadable documents and forms, and will be offered in two formats:
PDF - A document can be downloaded and printed by any computer with Adobe Reader installed, and DOES NOT require a word processor to view. However the contents of a document cannot be altered, revised or updated. An Adobe Reader is a free, readily available andeasily upgradeable program which is usually installed by the computer manufacturer.
MS Word - Microsoft Word is a word processor program in common use and is often installed by the computer manufacturer along with some version of MS Windows. These documents will have either a .doc or a .rtf suffix, and will require that MS Word or MS Office be installed, but the documents CAN BE altered, revised or updated once downloaded to the user's computer.
Living Wills have recently been brought to the forefront of everyones attention, especially in Florida. Many people who were previously ambivalent are now clamoring to have one prepared.The Patrick AFB JAG (Legal) Office has determined that it is NOT necessary to have either a Living Will or a Designation of Health Care Surrogate prepared by a lawyer, or even notarized. These documents do, however, require two witnesses, one of whom must not be a spouse or blood relative of the principal. The JAG has released suggested forms for these documents which comply with Florida Statutes, and these forms are available for download by clicking on one or more of the following links:
LIVING WILL
A Living Will, also known as a Health Care Power of Attorney or one of several other names, has a totally different purpose than a Will (See Individual Preparedness, Step 2 which follows). It applies while the principal is living but is in a terminal, end stage or vegetative state. It instructs physicians if the person wants life-sustaining procedures to be withheld in certain situations and it authorizes another person, known as an agent or surrogate, to carry out the provisions of the declaration.
HEALTH CARE SURROGATE
Designation of Health Care Surrogate is also effective only during the persons lifetime or until revoked.This document appoints an agent to make health care decisions should the principal become temporarily incapacitated, but would be expected to recover.
One of the major objectives of the Personal Affairs Committee is to convince the membership of the importance of individual preparedness for the certainty that sooner or later death will happen, while pointing out that it is much easier to live with that fact if a plan is in place to ease the burden of the surviving spouse and/or the next-of-kin.We have prepared a pamphlet which outline ways to break down the preparedness planning into easy-to-manage steps and provide suggestions and guidance for accomplishing each step. We call this program Five Steps to Peace of Mind, and the steps can be downloaded in PDF format by clicking on the following links:
The Personal Affairs committee is always looking for some new volunteers. This is a very rewarding endeavor because it involves helping others. The Personal Affairs Handbook is now in PDF format. Click here to review the Personal Affairs Handbook.