Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag -- greeted by a color guard.
But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners -- stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo.
I just found the above news story, and don't see it posted yet. I'm not sure what more there is to say, other than this is yet another sign of how highly the Bush administration thinks of the men and women who have given their lives for Bush's little war in Iraq. I suppose it could be worse - they could ship them UPS.
Edit - Since I posted this, quite a few people have brought up the issue of what 'standard proceedure' is. I really have no knowledge in that matter, but from what others have posted, it does seem that shipping the bodies of dead soldiers via aircraft cargo is relatively common. From the article linked, though, it definitely sounds as though something has gone wrong in this case, as shown by 3 pieces of the story:
- The parents of the fallen soldier are veterans, and as such should have some knowledge of how thing work. They clearly believe that proper protocol was not followed
- Senator Barbara Boxer got involved to 'make things right'. If everything is as it should have been, there should not have been anything that needed to be made right.
- The Defense Department can not/will not comment on what happened. Perhaps I'm just paranoid, but I rarely consider this a good sign. If there was nothing going on, shouldn't they have just said that this is standard proceedure and that the bodies are treated with all due respect?
This is a story that would really benefit from more information. In any case, I definitely think that more attention needs to be paid to the way that the bodies of fallen soldiers are being handled. Considering the low esteem in which they hold the lives of our soldiers, I doubt they value their bodies much at all.
Edit 2 - I've done some digging, and found a bit more information about dead soldier in question (Matthew Holley):
Matthew John Holley was killed Nov. 15 when his military vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Iraq
...
Days before he died, he asked his family to send him crayons so he could teach the Iraqi children how to draw.