This isn't an America bashing threade as I think this concerns everyone. Not much text, just a video that even shocked me as I have had friends die in Afghan and Iraq.
So supposedly the Air Force had no way to identify all of the fragmented remains? So they cremated and tossed them in the dump, everyone complicit in this needs their ass strung up. Even if they couldn't identify all of them, how fucking hard could it be to cremate them, place the ashes in an urn and build a small mausoleum dedicated to the unknown dead, at least that way they could have a decent resting place. I have a brother in the Army and the thought of something like this makes my blood boil.
It would be interesting to know a little more - for instance, at what looks like a horror show to begin with could be explained away as something a lot more simple. It could be that these were body parts that had been recovered apart from the main bulk of an individuals remains, things removed in operations trying to save the dead, tarpaulins covered in blood and gore that had carried dying or dead soldier. After all, if you have your leg amputated in hospital or lose it in an accident, they do not preserve it for when you die at a later date, they burn it and get rid of it.
While it is wrong to mix soldiers up with the rubbish for landfill, once the remains are back on US soil their are certain legal obligations to be dealth with. If it is not the major part of a persons remains, it is litle more than clinical waste. I would however prefer to see them cremated and put in the sea or mixed in with compost and used somehow.
I dont get why they said they couldnt DNA identify all of the remains, Jeez if you cut of someones leg you would think tie a tag onto it saying "this belongs too..." what? do they just throw body parts into a big bin or something?
I dont get why they said they couldnt DNA identify all of the remains, Jeez if you cut of someones leg you would think tie a tag onto it saying "this belongs too..." what? do they just throw body parts into a big bin or something?
Well, say you are in a hospital with an artirial blockage in your leg and you get gangrene, they chop it off. You die several days later, but your leg has already gone to the clinical waste incinerator.
If you and several others are inside an APC that gets obliterated and the only bits of Jimmy, Moe and you that can be carried out are the contents of what is left inside the remains of your flack jacket and helmet and the rest has to be washed out, what is some one to do? Sort through a soggy pile of mush for what amount to the literal poud of flesh? I know the woman said they have procedures in place in isreal to quickly identify victims of suicide bombings, but lets be fair, that is mostly a developed, urban nation where there are people who are skilled and qualified enough to do DNA testing and aspects of their national faith mean people will strive to do it. In reality, what would be little more than a sludge would have to be put in 210l UN barrels and shipped back to the states to be seperated and each piece They would then have to be tested, not withstanding how contaminated they are, which would render the whole process pointless.
I would guess that when they talk about remains, they are mostly refering to matter. Not an arm or a leg or a nose or a hand or something you think of as a human. I know from talking to soldiers who have cleaned up the mess made from bombs in Northern Ireland that you get all the bits you can. If it is obviouse that that part belongs with that person, it goes in the bag with the rest of them. However, the contents of the bags then have the scrutiny of reconstruction, a criminal investigation, an inquest and sometimes a trial and so they have those safegaurds built in - thinking on though, these would not have been DNA tested, rather parts put together and tissue spatter measured to determines the ballistics of the explosion.
From my own spiritual point of view, if I was in the situation where it could happen to me, I would prefer for as much as as me to go home as possible. If that meant at bit of Jimmy and Mo ended up with me in the hole in the ground that I mostly ended up in, so be it. It would also be a comfort to me if a bit ended up in their hole in the ground. Brothers in arms and whatnot. It would also be hard on the guys that had to scoop that stuff up. How far should they go? Every last spatter of blood? It was only in the last century that armies developed regulations on dog tags. Even up to the 1950's I know the UK and old 'Empire Forces' were still using fibre ones that could very easily be destroyed or damaged beyond recognition. Moving on in history, it is only since Vietnam that the US has been routinly repatriating those killed on active service. Before that, if things had 'busy', everything would be pushed in a hole.
We do have a pretty image of the war cemetaries in Europe, neat laid out lines, well tended to and forever a part of XYZ. In reality, a lot of these are pits that remains were put into. The gravestones are just representation of a resting place that lies close by of some one who was lucky enough to be identified - or in a lot of cases not. It is not unusual for their to have been no remains that could have been identified but for people who were in locations that were blown to pieces and the people within them too - for those to haev a grave stone in some cases.
War is a terrible, brutal thing. It is only because we have been so largely disasociated from it directly in recent generations that we do not understand the depth of carnage and the thigns people need to do so carry on with the mission. This may make it impossible to afford the dignity to the dead we otherwise might.
I will say however, landfill is the wrong place to ultimatly despose of these kinds of remains. We can afford to give some degree of respect, and should. Maybe a tomb of the fallen. When you say it is the incinerated waste of fallen service personel, it sounds wrong also. Burn it, get rid of it, but do not ignore what it once was. If you can bring it home to burn it and bury it with the household waste, you can bring it home to burn it and dispose of it in an area with a little more dignaty. That, or do not bring it home at all.
If its just a pile of mush and blood, I cant understand why they went to the effort to bring the remains back to the states and throw them in a land fill?
Comments
While it is wrong to mix soldiers up with the rubbish for landfill, once the remains are back on US soil their are certain legal obligations to be dealth with. If it is not the major part of a persons remains, it is litle more than clinical waste. I would however prefer to see them cremated and put in the sea or mixed in with compost and used somehow.
Well, say you are in a hospital with an artirial blockage in your leg and you get gangrene, they chop it off. You die several days later, but your leg has already gone to the clinical waste incinerator.
If you and several others are inside an APC that gets obliterated and the only bits of Jimmy, Moe and you that can be carried out are the contents of what is left inside the remains of your flack jacket and helmet and the rest has to be washed out, what is some one to do? Sort through a soggy pile of mush for what amount to the literal poud of flesh? I know the woman said they have procedures in place in isreal to quickly identify victims of suicide bombings, but lets be fair, that is mostly a developed, urban nation where there are people who are skilled and qualified enough to do DNA testing and aspects of their national faith mean people will strive to do it. In reality, what would be little more than a sludge would have to be put in 210l UN barrels and shipped back to the states to be seperated and each piece They would then have to be tested, not withstanding how contaminated they are, which would render the whole process pointless.
I would guess that when they talk about remains, they are mostly refering to matter. Not an arm or a leg or a nose or a hand or something you think of as a human. I know from talking to soldiers who have cleaned up the mess made from bombs in Northern Ireland that you get all the bits you can. If it is obviouse that that part belongs with that person, it goes in the bag with the rest of them. However, the contents of the bags then have the scrutiny of reconstruction, a criminal investigation, an inquest and sometimes a trial and so they have those safegaurds built in - thinking on though, these would not have been DNA tested, rather parts put together and tissue spatter measured to determines the ballistics of the explosion.
From my own spiritual point of view, if I was in the situation where it could happen to me, I would prefer for as much as as me to go home as possible. If that meant at bit of Jimmy and Mo ended up with me in the hole in the ground that I mostly ended up in, so be it. It would also be a comfort to me if a bit ended up in their hole in the ground. Brothers in arms and whatnot. It would also be hard on the guys that had to scoop that stuff up. How far should they go? Every last spatter of blood? It was only in the last century that armies developed regulations on dog tags. Even up to the 1950's I know the UK and old 'Empire Forces' were still using fibre ones that could very easily be destroyed or damaged beyond recognition. Moving on in history, it is only since Vietnam that the US has been routinly repatriating those killed on active service. Before that, if things had 'busy', everything would be pushed in a hole.
We do have a pretty image of the war cemetaries in Europe, neat laid out lines, well tended to and forever a part of XYZ. In reality, a lot of these are pits that remains were put into. The gravestones are just representation of a resting place that lies close by of some one who was lucky enough to be identified - or in a lot of cases not. It is not unusual for their to have been no remains that could have been identified but for people who were in locations that were blown to pieces and the people within them too - for those to haev a grave stone in some cases.
War is a terrible, brutal thing. It is only because we have been so largely disasociated from it directly in recent generations that we do not understand the depth of carnage and the thigns people need to do so carry on with the mission. This may make it impossible to afford the dignity to the dead we otherwise might.
I will say however, landfill is the wrong place to ultimatly despose of these kinds of remains. We can afford to give some degree of respect, and should. Maybe a tomb of the fallen. When you say it is the incinerated waste of fallen service personel, it sounds wrong also. Burn it, get rid of it, but do not ignore what it once was. If you can bring it home to burn it and bury it with the household waste, you can bring it home to burn it and dispose of it in an area with a little more dignaty. That, or do not bring it home at all.
But yes well put dj rocker