Upstream | November 10, 2011 | 10 comments

Ashes from Service Members' Remains Went Into Landfill

source: http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/09/us/dover-remains/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

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EthicalVegan
CNN...


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General: Ashes from service members' remains went to landfill

From Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent
updated 10:07 PM EST, Wed November 9, 2011

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The mortuary at Dover Air Force Base handles the nation's war dead. Some remains were dumped in landfills, a general says.

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The practice was stopped in 2008; ashes from partial remains are now disposed of at sea

An Air Force official emphasizes the remains were 'parts of bone and other DNA material'


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(CNN) -- The ashes of cremated body parts from some of the nation's war dead were dumped in landfills until 2008, unbeknownst to their survivors, an Air Force general acknowledged Wednesday.

The practice was stopped, and remains from cremated body parts now are disposed of at sea, Air Force Chief of Public Affairs Brig. Gen. Les Kodlick said.

The landfill disposal of the ashes was first reported in The Washington Post.

Kodlick issued a statement describing instances prior to 2008 when families had authorized portions of remains to be disposed of. Another Air Force official, speaking on background, emphasized that these situations did not involve bodies but "parts of bone and other DNA material."

Military escorts accompanied the remains to a crematorium near Dover Air Force Base Mortuary, which processes remains of service members killed overseas, the statement said.

After cremation, the ashes were escorted back to Dover, Kodlick said, and then turned over to a contractor "for further incineration and disposition in accordance with medical disposition."

"The common practice was that any residual matter remaining after incineration was disposed of by the contractor in a landfill," Kodlick said.

"We could have done it better," he said.

The Air Force official speaking on background emphasized that families had authorized disposal of those remains, but did not know the ashes would be put in a landfill.



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10 comments // Ashes from Service Members' Remains Went Into Landfill

  • theREALpeacekitten
  • EthicalVegan
  • letsliveinpeace
  • letsliveinpeace
  • timelord999
  • EthicalVegan
  • Johnny_Los_Angeles
  • freecrack
    • +1
      freecrack  

    • maybe im arrogant, or maybe insanely humble, but i dont understand how we are surprised by this.
      am i so humble that i find the way we treat our soldiers to be inherently offensive?
      am i so arrogant to think only i see this?

      their is literaly nothing that would shock me that our gove would do with soldiers, as they already treat them worse than lab animals.if they turned soliders into siolent green i wouldnt flinch, as im expecting it.

    • 7 months ago
  • GENERALNATTY
  • Incredulous
    • +3
      Incredulous  

    • So terribly indicative of the way government is capable of viewing the lives it uses up, and then "disposes" of....hard to even read this.

      “Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy.” Henry Kissinger

      Statement made by Kissinger in front of Alexander Haig, newly appointed White House chief of staff, in Haig's new office in 1973.

      The related sentences: quote between brackets is "dumb, stupid animals to be used" that was never denied by Kissinger.
      ....
      In Haig's presence, Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as "dumb, stupid animals to be used" as pawns for foreign policy. Kissinger often took up a post outside the doorway to Haig's office and dressed him down in front of the secretaries for alleged acts of incompetence, with which Haig was not even remotely involved. Once, when the Air Force was authorized to resume bombing of North Vietnam, the planes did not fly on certain days because of bad weather. Kissinger assailed Haig. He complained bitterly that the generals had been screaming for the limits to be taken off, but that now their pilots were afraid to go up in a little fog. The country needed generals who could win battles, Kissinger said, not good briefers like Haig.

      [quote]

      On another occasion, when Haig was leaving for a trip to Cambodia to meet with Premier Lon Nol, Kissinger escorted him to a staff car, where reporters and a retinue of aides waited. As Haig bent to get into the automobile, Kissinger stopped him and began polishing the single star on his shoulder. "Al, if you're a good boy, I'll get you another one," he said.

      Source(s):
      Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein
      The Final Days
      second Touchstone paperback edition (1994)
      Chapter 14, pp. 194-195

      http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080829163144AAAY2UB

    • 7 months ago
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