Joseph Sarandos
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BELATEDLY some DIGNITY for U.S. Troops KILLED in Bush’s War!
Now that the Bush Administration had been shamed into changing its attitude toward the wounded and injured veterans of “Bush’s wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan, stemming from horrendous revelations about the Walter Reed Army Hospital by a private newspaper, and now that the highly embarrassed George W. Bush has “bent over backward” to ensure that such veterans will no longer be considered and treated like so many “expensive inconveniences” and “drains upon the War-budget,” something is belatedly being done to reverse the similar attitude toward the bodies and remains of troops who were killed in those wars.
Without even adding emphases of my own, I’ll let the following report by the Associated Press “speak for itself” verbatim, although much more could have been (and will be) said and written on this subject, and although this report was nowhere near as "hard-hitting" on Bush as it should have been.
Joseph
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Military changes how fallen are brought home
Dead soldiers are now being flown on charter jets after one father takes up cause.
The Associated Press
In an about-face by the U.S. government four years into the war in Iraq, America’s fallen troops are being brought back to their families aboard charter jets instead of ordinary commercial flights, and the caskets are being met by honor guards in white gloves instead of baggage handlers with forklifts.
That change — which took effect quietly in January and applies to members of the U.S. military killed in Afghanistan, too — came after a campaign waged by a father who was aghast to learn that his son’s body was going to be unloaded like so much luggage.
John Holley said an airline executive told him that was the “most expeditious” way to get the body home.
“I said, ‘That’s not going to happen with my son. That’s not how my son is coming home,”’ said Holley, an Army veteran from San Diego whose son, Spc. Matthew Holley, was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2005. “If it was ‘expeditious’ to deliver them in garbage trucks, would you do that?”
Kalitta Charters of Ypsilanti, Mich., won the Pentagon contract to bring the war dead home, and has returned 143 bodies since Jan. 1.
More than 3,500 Americans have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Before the new law was passed by Congress, the dead that arrived from overseas at the military mortuary in Dover, Del., were then typically flown to the commercial airport nearest their families.
Some were met by smartly uniformed military honor guards. But in other cases, the flag-draped caskets were unceremoniously taken off the plane by ordinary ground crew members and handed over to the family at a warehouse in a cargo area.
Now, the military is flying the dead into smaller regional airports closer to their hometowns, so that they can be met by their families and, in some cases, receive community tributes. And the caskets are being borne from the plane by an honor guard.
Last year, the U.S. military spent about $1.2 million to bring home the dead on commercial flights. Switching to charter flights will cost far more: The six-month Kalitta contract is worth up to $11 million.
“It’s so much more dignified, so much more a respectable way of getting them home,” said Tom Bellisario, a Kalitta pilot who has flown more than 30 of the missions.
“It’s definitely an honor for all of us,” Bellisario said. “You figure the last time they saw that person they were alive. As soon as we pull the flag-draped casket into the doorway you hear the crying. You can sense it in the air.”
John Holley said he believed his 21-year-old son deserved a more dignified return than the Pentagon was planning, and complained to his congressman, then-House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. He also got help from Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.
They made sure an honor guard from Holley’s unit based at Fort Campbell, Ky., was sent to Lindbergh Field in San Diego for the arrival of the body. Holley said the ceremony was dignified and fitting.
Then he turned his attention to other U.S. soldiers.
“What about all these other parents?” Holley said. “This is one of the last memories. I don’t want it to be in a warehouse on a forklift.”
Military officials have said commercial airliners was the fastest way to return the dead to their families.
Hunter wrote a letter to then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in December 2005, calling for more appropriate military honors. Speaking from the House floor in May, Hunter said: “The extreme respect that should be afforded those fallen heroes ... has in some cases, been lacking.”
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4/7/2007, 10:12 am
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NamVet2
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Re: BELATEDLY some DIGNITY for U.S. Troops KILLED in Bush’s War!
Chief and others,
It does appear as if "timing is everything," as was exemplified in this instance.
Spc. Matthew Holley's dad, John, was never alone in his begging and pleading for such changes. Worse, he was never alone in being "graciously stonewalled" by the powers that be in the Bush Administration.
Along with my own group, most if not all of the Veterans' advocacy organizations had made it a "pet project" to bring about an end to such undignified treatment and handling of soldiers' bodies as they were being returned from the M-E and handed over to their grieving and mourning relatives.
We are not seeking, and we will not be receiving, any "credits" for the needed changes as were outlined in the AP article. Such credits belong with John Holley, who deserves the loud applause of every family of every fallen soldier, and with the newspapers that had "shamed Bush" into changing his policies with regard to the wounded and injured casualties of "his war," without which previous actions there would have been no changes to his policies with regard to the dead.
This has been a case of "one forced good deed siring another forced good deed". Hence my opening observation that "timing is everything" in persuading non-caring politicians to "bend over backward" on behalf of the casualties of their foreign policies.
As Aaron would put it, let's chalk this up as another "victory" for the troops, the veterans, and the families thereof.
Personally, I am elated by this "string of victories" against those who would rather ignore the human consequences of their political actions.
Greg
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4/7/2007, 1:59 pm
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Incog4
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Re: BELATEDLY some DIGNITY for U.S. Troops KILLED in Bush’s War!
Well dammit Greg, this certainly is another victory, of no small significance, and the parts played by organizations like yours certainly do deserve recognition and credit, even if only among those of us who know of your tireless and selfless efforts on behalf of the living and dead veterans and the still-healthy troops who are not free to speak their minds for themselves while on active duty.
Of course we know that guys like you are not "in it for credit or profit". In the eyes of God and other good men, good deeds are their own reward, both in this life and the next. It is undeniably true that "Evil flourishes when good men do nothing". So, just imagine how much easier it would be for men like GWB if not for men like you.
<hand salute>
Aaron
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4/10/2007, 6:36 pm
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