Dover Air Force Base - Mortuary Procedures

The Final Leg of The Long Sad Journey Home

Published on April 19, 2004 By mikimouse In Politics

Of course by now we all know how Bush and Co. will not allow any photos and press coverage of what he considers to be the useless and the shameful; mere pawns who can no longer help his cause. But this site will allow those of us who care about the dead GI's to see their final destination, the destination Bush and Co. wish to deny you.

Comments (Page 1)

WiseFawn

on Apr 19, 2004

I wish I could give more than one insightful.

mikimouse

on Apr 19, 2004

Thanks a lot. It's a hard issue that's well hidden these days. It's sad.

JillUser

on Apr 19, 2004

What is your point? I care about my grandmother but I don't need details on how the mortician would handle her body. Are you saying our GI's bodies are being handled with disrespect? I didn't see anything there that eluded to that.

shadesofgrey

on Apr 22, 2004

What is your point?

Interestingly ,this was the lead story on the news tonight. The Pentagon in the early ninties had an informal ban on showing pictures of soldiers coffins, they cracked down on the ban at the start of this war. The woman who worked for Maytag and took the picture and sent it to the Seattle Timeswas fired. Maytag and the Pentagon were furious about the leak, and the fact that the website, which has legally forced the release of all the pictures on it, was receiving tons of traffic.

The outrage is misplaced though. According to NBC the reaction has not been what the Pentagon feared. Rather, most people who saw the picture of the coffins, draped in flags, laid out and the soldier saluting thought the picture was a sign of respect for the soldiers, for what they had given up and sacraficed--not a message of antiwar protest.

Solitair

on Apr 23, 2004

I find it very interesting the outrage from some quarters about showing US flag draped coffins being shown the utmost respect.

It contrasts very interestingly with the anger felt in the UK about CBS showing pictures two nights ago of princess Diana dying in a car.

Paul.

mikimouse

on Apr 30, 2004

diana wasn't killed in combat. And the pics of her dying are personal because she's not a soldier (guys that tend to die in combat). But we saw her flag draped coffin being carted through the streets with no protest.

mikimouse

on Apr 30, 2004

true Karma. But how is a picture of coffins intruding on the families of the dead. They're not identified. It's all because the pictures erode support, as the disgusting prison torture pics have done. The US needs to convince Iraq and the world they mean business when it comes to real freedoms. So far, all they've been doing is saying they're there to help them. But they're not acting on it. No electricity, no clean water, no nothing that they had under Hussein. It's no wonder the majority of Iraqis want the US to leave. These images need to be shown so the people can see the cost of what many consider to be nothing more than blatant lies.

mikimouse

on Apr 30, 2004

oh and the dead reservists never signed up to fight in an overseas battle. I bet none of them did. Otherwise they'd have been in the mainstream military rather than the national guard. I'd say none of them imagined they'd be sent to Iraq. I figure barely any of them would have enlisted had they known that. What is it? Like $1500,.00 per month? $500 extra for danger pay?

Draginol

on Apr 30, 2004

If a family member of mine dies, regardless of the causes, I don't want them shown on national TV. It should be just a matter of basic decency but apparently anti-war people are willing to shed decency and instead use their bodies for crass political gain.

It is pretty hard to conclude anything else. I don't know very many people who would want their loved ones shown deceased on television for any reason.

dharmagrl

on Apr 30, 2004

I'm really torn on this. On the one hand, I don't want the coffins being shown to the world, whether it's anonomously or not, out of respect to the familes of those who died. If my husband had been one of those who were killed, I'd drive myself crazy wondering if his was one of the ones pictured, and I'd be pretty upset that even in death we couldn't be left alone and given some privacy.

On the other hand, I want them to be shown because I think we need to get a grip on the human face of this conflict.

So, like I said, I'm torn.

Draginol

on Apr 30, 2004

BTW, if a given family decides they want to have their loved one's body or coffin shown on TV then that's their right. It should be up to the family to decide what coverage their fallen receive, not the media.

dharmagrl

on Apr 30, 2004

Like $1500,.00 per month? $500 extra for danger pay?

It depends on what your rank is.

KarmaGirl

on Apr 30, 2004

I guess your idea of respect and mine are different. I don't see anything shocking in what that picture shows. It only shows a few coffins being respectfully treated. Death is something that should not become a public spectacle. That is my opinion. A picture of a mass of new graves would drive the point harder and more respectively than showing caskets waiting for their final resting place.

The people who join the National Guard do so just like anyone else in the Military. The military is the military. The National Guard is just a portion of the Army, but it is still the Army. It's considered a military occupational specialty. Considering one of those specialties is "combat", how can you say that none of them signed up for it? Don't join the armed forces unless you plan on fighting. The whole point in paying military personnel is to defend our country and uphold democracy. It's not simply a free ride to college or a "typical job". With joining the military comes great responsibility to the country. It is also currently a free decision.

Do I think that what we are doing is right? Not all of it. But, that doesn't change the fact that the people that are fighting voluntarily joined. If they joined for the wrong reasons, that is sad, but that is not our government's fault. It's not a "join the army to serve and protect as long as we're not at war." It doesn't work that way.

dharmagrl

on Apr 30, 2004

It should be up to the family to decide what coverage their fallen receive, not the media.

Exactly. If I as a military wife say it's ok to show my husband's casket, then show it. Until then, please don't regard my loved ones reamins as public property to be exploited for your particular political cause.

mikimouse

on Apr 30, 2004

closed coffins are not intruding on the family's grief. Consider: if the families of the dead insisted that their loved ones be pictured in their closed coffins do you think the government would comply? Of course not. Not too much in the news about families complaining about an invasion of privacy. I haven't seen anything like that on the many sites I frequent. By the way do you guys conspire with each other because this thread was dead forever and all of a sudden there's a bunch of new posts by the heavy hitters here, resulting in my losing a ton of points. I read in another thread that this happens when you pass a certain marker. I just find it odd is all...

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