Jul 25 2007
Honor Our Fallen Heroes, At All Costs
One quick way for the military and Secretary Gates to lose all support is by not taking the time to honor those who have sacrificed all in protecting this nation. A story in the NY Times is a prime example of what NOT to do when it comes to our fallen heroes:
FORT LEWIS, Wash. — Twenty soldiers deployed to Iraq from this Army base were killed in May, a monthly high. That same month, the base announced a change in how it would honor its dead: instead of units holding services after each death, they would be held collectively once a month.
The anger and hurt were immediate. Soldiers’ families and veterans protested the change as cold and logistics-driven. Critics online said the military was trying to repress bad news about deaths. By mid-June, the base had delayed the plan.
…
During Vietnam and Korea, the historians say, many bases were places for training soldiers and shipping them out, rarely to see them return, with memorial services uncommon. Now, in the age of the all-volunteer force, the base has become the center of community. The Army and other branches have fostered the idea that military service is as much about education, job training and belonging to a community as national defense.
The military people I know do see service as part of their family. And with a volunteer military it is most important to treat the sacrifices of these people with all the dignity and honor we can muster. I confess myself to not always doing enough to honor these heroes. This story reminds me I need to do so much more. But the military itself has no excuse in this. I expect President Bush to step in and fix this swiftly. He knows full well that we as a nation can never, ever let the passing of a hero become a mundane part of life. With a son heading into the service in all likelihood I understand how these families feel. We cannot take their sacrifice or the offer of one of their own for granted.
Think about it AJ … twenty troops killed from that one base. With a service per soldier, that would mean a service every single weekday of the month. The other soldiers would be able to get nothing done, they would be at a funeral every single work day.
The funeral a month isnt about the soldiers who have died, it is about the soldiers who are still alive. Why put them through that every day, day after day, of attending services for their fallen comrades? Once a month is enough.
I want to add something that I think is important to this. The New York Times in engaging in agitation propaganda here. They are attempting to create an issue where there isn’t one. Each fallen soldier gets their own individual funeral. Most are in their home town or at a national cemetery. The bodies of our fallen heroes are sent to Dover, Delaware and from there go to their final resting place.
This is about memorial services back at the home bases for the troops, not funerals. As the surge ramped up and our tempo of combat operations increased, it was anticipated that casualty rates would also rise. Rather than have an individual memorial service for each individual soldier at their home base, it was decided to remember all those who had made the ultimate sacrifice that month in one ceremony.
The purpose is to minimize the psychological impact of attending service after service, possibly several in a day until they became almost meaningless or because of so many services, a soldier might not be able to attend one for a good friend. Instead the military decided to have one service each month so that all can attend and give those troops their due respects from their fellow soldiers.
I support this decision and am rather irritated with the NYT attempting to play games like this. They are attempting to agitate the public into getting the Army to change a policy in such a way as to cause the maximum possible demoralization of our soldiers. If they succeeded in effecting this change, they would then probably write an article about the lack of attendance at the services simply because there are so many of them.
I support the military in this decision.