A ‘Nation’ Honoring It’s Fallen, Past Due

(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

This started out as just a ‘to be comment’, with the NPR report just below, updating the reports surfacing about the revisit of the policy on our returning soldiers killed in action in the two combat theaters. I kept finding abit more so included, along with an upcoming HBO presentation, this coming weekend, of a documentary on the journal written by an officer as he accompanied a soldier back to his family and community.

Rethinking Media Coverage Of Fallen Troops

Talk of the Nation, February 17, 2009 · President Obama has indicated that the Pentagon will review a policy banning the press from photographing the remains of U.S. troops returning to the states in flag-draped “transfer cases” at Dover Air Force Base. The ban has been in effect since the Gulf War in 1991.

John Barry, national security correspondent for Newsweek, once attended the unloading of the coffins from a C-17 at Dover. He writes that witnessing “an event so moving in its intimacy and restraint” made him feel like an intruder.

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Below is an earlier discussion right after President Obama made his statement as to the new Administration looking in to this policy of hiding the return of our fallen.

Ban On Media Coverage Of Military Coffins Revisited

All Things Considered, February 11, 2009 · A longtime Pentagon policy bars the media from covering the arrival of coffins carrying the military’s dead. But that may change under the Obama administration.

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At the University of Delaware, professor Ralph Begleiter, a former CNN correspondent, has fought unsuccessfully in the courts for the release of government photos taken at Dover. He says it’s an important element of the story of any war.

“What I’m about to say, I say with the fullest respect of the family members who have made that sacrifice by giving up their family members,” Begleiter said. “I would say the people who die make that sacrifice not solely for the families but also for the nation. So it’s not just a matter of privacy for the families. It’s a matter of national grieving.”

This is also an earlier NPR show and discussion on this important topic:

After Death, a Soldier’s Journey Is Not Over

Talk of the Nation, April 7, 2008 · Writer Chris Jones followed a soldier’s body from Baghdad to its final resting place in the soldier’s hometown of Scottsburg, Ind. Jones discusses the long journey in “The Things That Carried Him,” a detailed article in Esquire magazine about the transfer of remains.

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Esquire magazine “The Things That Carried Him”, By Chris Jones.

When we joined the Military, along with all the papers to sign and more, we took an Oath, and Oath that stays with all who serve, wether one stays in or finishes his or hers enlistment, the Oath and the Experinces never leave:

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. { So help me God }

This is the same Oath but for the officers who serve:

I, [name], do solemly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State (Commonwealth, District, Territory) of __ against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the Governor of the State (Commonwealth, District, Territory) of __, that I make this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the Office of [grade] in the Army/Air National Guard of the State (Commonwealth, District, Territory) of ___ upon which I am about to enter, { so help me God.}

You serve for Country and Constitution and deserve to be Honored, right or wrong the decisions of the civilian and military leadership, by the Country, and they must know the true cost of that service especially after being sent into conflicts far from home!

Grief for War Dead Shrouds Casket Photo Ban

Military Families Want Sons’ and Daughters’ Stories Told — but Privacy Respected

Insets, from left to right: A1C. Elizabeth N. Jacobson, LCpl. Justin Mark Ellsworth, Pfc. Brandon Sapp and Sgt. Patrick McCaffrey. Back, in this Department of Defense photo soldiers drape U.S. flags over the caskets of members of a Black Hawk helicopter crew killed in Kuwait in 2005.

“His life was the American middle-class dream,” said his mother, Nadia McCaffrey, 63, a veterans’ rights activist who lives in the house her son left in Tracy, Calif. “He didn’t realize war could happen.”

The family was besieged by the press nonstop for 10 days, and because they had so many unanswered questions about their son’s death, they allowed the media to join them when Patrick’s body arrived in Sacramento.

“The day my son left for Iraq he was hoping to make a difference,” his father, Bob McCaffrey, told ABCNews.com. “He left behind his children, his wife and his own life. We are not going to hide him when he comes home.”

The McCaffrey’s decision defied a longstanding military ban on photographing the caskets of America’s war dead — a policy that had been enacted in 1991 during the first Gulf War. Many mistakenly believe that it was President George W. Bush who enacted the ban.

“It’s like they’re hiding the service members killed in action,” said McCaffrey, 64, of Bella Vista, Calif. “It disgusted me from the beginning.”

Below is a part of a previous post:

Film tells story of final journey for soldier

We as a Nation, for these past 7plus years, have not been allowed to Honor the Returning Soldiers killed while serving this Country in these Two Theaters of Occupations, and because of that few know or even think about the real cost of War, especially Wars of Choice!

President Obama has now said he will be revisiting that policy, set by those who sent our Military into both Theaters.

GILLETTE, Wyo. – It was just one soldier’s story. Lance Cpl. Chance Phelps, 19, was killed in an ambush outside of Baghdad on Good Friday 2004. Within the next week, his body would be escorted from Iraq, across the Atlantic Ocean and across most of the United States to his hometown of Dubois in northwest Wyoming.

To national audiences, it was one more military casualty.

But like every soldier felled in battle, Chance left behind a world of connections: family, friends and a small Wyoming town devastated by his loss. The man who accompanied his casket from Philadelphia to Dubois, Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, provided a glimpse into that world by journaling the cross-country trip.