It seems even the dead are being
used for propaganda:
Unlike earlier wars, nearly all Arlington National Cemetery gravestones for troops killed in Iraq or Afghanistan are inscribed with the slogan-like operation names the Pentagon selected to promote public support for the conflicts.
Nadia and Robert McCaffrey, whose son Patrick was killed in Iraq in June 2004, said "Operation Iraqi Freedom" ended up on his government-supplied headstone in Oceanside, Calif., without family approval.
"I was a little taken aback," Robert McCaffrey said, describing his reaction when he first saw the operation name on Patrick's tombstone. "They certainly didn't ask my wife; they didn't ask me." He said Patrick's widow told him she had not been asked either.
"In one way, I feel it's taking advantage to a small degree," McCaffrey said. "Patrick did not want to be there, that is a definite fact."
The owner of the company that has been making gravestones for Arlington and other national cemeteries for nearly two decades is uncomfortable, too.
"It just seems a little brazen that that's put on stones," said Jeff Martell, owner of Granite Industries of Vermont. "It seems like it might be connected to politics."
Now of course I have no problem if the families want those slogans on there. These soldiers died valiantly, regardless of whether the government's policy was correct or not. I'm sure for some familes those slogans help them deal with the death, giving them a feeling that the soldier died for a higher cause, for the greater good.
Unfortunately the article makes it seem like opt-out e-mail. The slogans are the default, and they are only taken off of the gravestones if the family requests they be taken off.
How many families are thinking thoughtfully about the inscription on a gravestone when they are overcome with grief? Most people who've had to make funeral arrangements, especially for unexpected deaths, will tell you it's a blur, a surreal feeling clouds the whole process. How can you make decisions that seem right when you can't even believe the whole thing is happening?
In years to come I hope that these familes don't visit the graves and mumble to themselves "Iraqi Freedom, my ass."