Thursday, December 8, 2011

Someone's Head MUST Roll!

I saw the headline a couple of days ago: "Ashes of US Soldiers dumped in landfill."

I didn't bother to click on the headline - I assumed that it was some godless jerks in Afghanistan or Iran....

Today, I saw the headline again, this time on a site that gave the first couple of sentences of the article as well.

Turns out that this outrage - this abomination - took place in Virginia. And our own Air Force was the one who did it! (And this can't be blamed on Obama. It happened from 2003 to 2008).

Here's the article from The Toronto Sun:
Ashes of 274 U.S. troops dumped in landfill: Report
Partial remains of dead American soldiers who were supposed to be buried with dignity were dumped in a Virginia landfill — and the numbers are much higher than originally revealed.

After claiming, back in November, it couldn't provide an estimate, the U.S. air force now says it dumped some of the remains of at least 274 troops, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

The paper broke the story last month, when it was discovered that fragments from soldiers' bodies were secretly being cremated at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and taken to King George County landfill between 2003 and 2008. In 2008, the practice was stopped and the air force now does burial at sea.

The family of service members were not told cremated remains were thrown out, air force officials admitted.

Gari-Lynn Smith, whose husband died in Iraq in 2006, told the newspaper she was "appalled and disgusted" when she learned parts of her husband were "thrown in the trash."

The air force issued a statement at the time saying changes were being made at the Dover mortuary.

"Investigators found no evidence anyone intentionally mishandled remains, but concluded the mortuary staff failed to maintain accountability while processing portions of remains for three service members," the statement said.

"Each family received remains of their service member for interment; the staff, however, was not able to ensure additional portions of remains were handled in a manner consistent with the families' instructions."

In one case, the investigation found mortuary staff "could have communicated more clearly with the representatives of a sister service about restorative actions taken to prepare the remains of a service member, killed by an improvised explosive device, whose family requested to view him in uniform."

The 17-month investigation also uncovered problems with documentation, record keeping and administrative procedures.

Dover's database showed that 976 fragments from 274 personnel were incinerated, the Post's latest report says. A further 1,762 fragments that were too badly burned or damaged to be identified were also disposed of this way.

Since 2003, Dover mortuary staff have prepared more than 6,300 bodies for return to their families.

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