|
Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
|
Photos of coffins coming home
Quote:
View: A Coffin, a Flag, a Photograph
Source: The Lede NY Times
posted with the TFP thread generator
A Coffin, a Flag, a Photograph
For the first time in 18 years, the Pentagon granted the press access on Sunday night to cover the arrival of a coffin to Dover Air Force Base from overseas.
The coffin, draped in a flag and bearing the body of Air Force Staff Sgt. Philip Myers of Hopewell, Va, was unloaded from a government aircraft by the military honor guard. The 30-year-old Mr. Myers was killed by an improvised explosive device near Helmand Province in Afghanistan on April 4, according to the Defense Department.
A ban on news coverage of returning war dead, which had been in place since the Persian Gulf War in 1991, was lifted by the Obama administration following a review of the policy by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
In the hours leading up to the transfer of Mr. Myers’s corpse, Air Force officials received the consent of his family members — per the new policy — to grant members of the news media permission to be on hand.
Dover Air Force base, in Delaware, houses the largest military mortuary in the country and is the Pentagon’s point of entry for service men and women killed abroad.
Mr. Myers, a member of the 48th Civil Engineer Squadron, was awarded a Bronze Star for bravery on March 19 during an Airmen’s Call at the Royal Air Force station in Lakenheath, England — a base from which the U.S. Air Force operates — according to the Pentagon. On Sunday night, his body arrived on a flight from the Air Force base in Ramstein, Germany, where it had been flown from Afghanistan.
The ban has been the subject of debate for years. Supporters cite the privacy of family members and say that, in its absence, casualties could become politicized; critics point to the First Amendment and have accused the government of trying to keep the public in the dark about the human toll of war.
|
Do you find this difficult? Did you agree with the photo ban? How does seeing a casket make you feel?
This doesn't change my opinion of war. War is a shitty thing. It is the worst side of humanity. This is why I'm okay with torture, because it is just like war. I find both reprehensible and horrific, but it is what the human can do in the most extreme and the most negative. It is the yang to all the great humanitarian things that have been accomplished.
I don't mind the photos and the caskets, it is a reality of war. It is the price of war. It is the price our citizens pay.
__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.
|