Gates orders review of Dover photo ban. At the beginning of the Iraq War, the Pentagon banned coverage of all "deceased military personnel returning to or departing from" air bases, citing privacy rights of those killed and their families. Biden, in 2004, called it "shameful" for dead soldiers to be "snuck back into the country under the cover of night." "If the needs of the families can be met," Gates added, "the more honor we can accord these fallen heroes, the better."
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Gates is once again asking for a change in this policy, that as Biden says sneaks the bodies of our dead soldiers in the dark of night. However, this time we have a new administration, a more open policy, and seemingly this deplorable ban will now end. These are the faces of war, these are our brave and now dead. We must not hide them away, but honor them in every way.
Dover Air Force Base in Delaware is where the bodies of our soldiers fallen in war are returned to us. Since March 2003, a newly-enforced military regulation has forbidden taking or distributing images of caskets or body tubes containing the remains of soldiers who died overseas.
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Curtains Ordered for Media Coverage of Returning Coffins" by Dana Milbank (Washington Post, 21 Oct 2003):
Since the end of the Vietnam War, presidents have worried that their military actions would lose support once the public glimpsed the remains of U.S. soldiers arriving at air bases in flag-draped caskets. To this problem, the Bush administration has found a simple solution: It has ended the public dissemination of such images by banning news coverage and photography of dead soldiers' homecomings on all military bases.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday ordered a review of a military policy that bans the media from taking photographs of U.S. soldiers' caskets as they're flown into Dover Air Force Base. His announcement came less than 24 hours after President Obama spoke on the issue at his first prime time press conference. Gates said he asked the White House about a year ago if the policy at Dover might be changed. In addition to privacy concerns, he said Bush administration officials responded that family members of the deceased soldiers might feel compelled to be at the base for services honoring their family member, and that could be financially burdensome for them. At the prime time press conference Monday night, Obama did not give a clear answer when CNN's Ed Henry asked if he supported the current ban. But the president said his administration is in talks with the Department of Defense on the matter. "I don't want to give you an answer now before I've evaluated that review and understand all the implications involved," the president told Henry.
In an e-mail to the Reporters Committee, Lt. Col. Les Melnyk, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Dover ban was reaffirmed after Gates' review a year ago, "based on the input of families of the fallen." But based on the president's comments last night, he said Gates has now directed a new review with a short deadline for a recommendation to the president.
CNN's Henry noted that Vice President and former Delaware Senator Joe Biden, in 2004, called it "shameful" for dead soldiers to be "snuck back into the country under the cover of night." The policy has faced opposition from photographers, First Amendment advocates and some families of deceased soldiers.
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Let us honor our brave dead soldiers:
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The Final Playing of TAPS
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