America’s Heroes Treated Like Dogs

Warning: this will make you sick

The web page for Forever Friends Pet Cremation Services explains…

Pet cremation is a clean, sanitary way of saving your pet’s remains. Pet cremation is environmentally sound, providing an alternative to placement in municipal landfill sites, or for those who do not have adquate space for burying their pets.

The problem of taking up space in municipal landfill sites must have been a big consideration when an officer accompanying the body of a comrade to his final disposition discovered that the military had contracted with Forever Friends to handle the bodies of US servicemembers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On Friday [May 9] the Pentagon banned the arrangement, which had been in place since 2001. According to a story in the Washington Post, Some War Dead Were Cremated at Facility Handling Pets, Pentagon officials say they don’t think human and animal remains were ever comingled at the facility. That will probably soothe the outrage of families who might suspect from this news that they’ve got some dog’s ashes in that urn or plot instead of their loved one.

From now on, the Pentagon promises, all cremations will be done by crematories associated with actual human funeral homes. For those who thought it wasn’t a very good idea when these wars of foreign aggression were started that the news media was barred from photographing returning coffins or covering funerals of service personnel killed in those wars, this is just one more reason why it behooves us to pay some real attention to the horrors the new “privatized military” brings. It’s cheaper to cremate dogs than people, so I’m sure some pencil-pusher honestly thought no one would ever be the wiser.

Those whose loved ones were cremated after they were killed in action will no doubt be gratified to know that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates found “the site and signage insensitive and entirely inappropriate for the dignified treatment of our fallen. The families of the fallen have the secretary’s deepest apologies,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said at a news conference hastily staged when the news hit the fan.

Worse, had the officer not attended the cremation of his friend (because no family members were present), the situation might never have become known. Lt. General Frank Klotz, Director of the Air Force Staff, said he doesn’t know whether ANY military officer previously had ever inspected the contracted crematories.

David Bose, manager of Forever Friends, said that typically service members would drop off remains at his crematory after he signed the paperwork, and would return the next day to sign for and pick up the cremains. This is contrary to normal procedure described by Gen. Klotz, where the military provides escort for all service members killed overseas during all transport and processing at the Dover mortuary until the deceased returns home for interment.

Wow. My father and father-in-law, whose trifolded flags adorn the mantle in glass cases honoring their service to this nation would be spinning in their graves in total outrage! Or, in the case of my own father who spent 27 years being the best he could be, there would probably be tears and a badly broken heart.

There is something very, very wrong here. It’s been wrong ever since GW Bush launched these ill-conceived oil wars, and it’s still wrong today even though we hear that the Pentagon won’t be cremating our war dead with assorted dead cats and dogs any more since last Friday. I hope some outraged, still-human country in this world takes these war criminals to the Hague someday. They deserve it.

Links:

Some War Dead Cremated at Facility for Pets
Pentagon objects to cremation facilities
Pentagon Shipping Troops’ Remains to Pet Crematory
Forever Friends Pet Cremation Services

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Filed under Policy, Outrage, Memorials, Veterans, Military, War, Corruption |