During Bush Years Remains of War Dead Dumped in Landfill

Chimperator Bush surely loved to use members of the nation's military as backdrops for political events - all the time claiming that he revered "our troops" as do many demagogues in the Republican establishment today. As the sayings go, talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words. A breaking scandal at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware is underscoring just how cheap such pro-military words were under the dark years of the Bush/Cheney regime. It seems that throwing remains of war dead returning from the fool's errand war in Iraq and Afghanistan sold to the American people based on lies into a landfill was just fine. No wonder the Chimperator and Emperor Palpatine Cheney never wanted to allow the press to take pictures of the returning coffins, etc. The Washington Post has details on this disturbing story. Here are highlights:

The Dover Air Force Base mortuary for years disposed of portions of troops’ remains by cremating them and dumping the ashes in a Virginia landfill, a practice that officials have since abandoned in favor of burial at sea.

The mortuary in Delaware, the main point of entry for the nation’s war dead and the target of federal investigations of alleged mishandling of remains, engaged in the practice from 2003 to 2008, according to Air Force officials. The manner of disposal was not disclosed to relatives of fallen service members.

Gari-Lynn Smith, portions of whose husband’s remains were disposed of in the landfill after his 2006 death in Iraq, said she was “appalled and disgusted” by the way the Air Force had acted. She learned of the landfill disposal earlier this spring in a letter from a senior official at the Dover mortuary.

“My only peace of mind in losing my husband was that he was taken to Dover and that he was handled with dignity, love, respect and honor,” Smith said. “That was completely shattered for me when I was told that he was thrown in the trash.”

The disclosure of the landfill disposals comes in the aftermath of multiple federal investigations that documented “gross mismanagement” at Dover Air Force Base, which receives the remains of all service members killed in action in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere overseas.

On Tuesday, the Air Force acknowledged that the mortuary had lost a dead soldier’s ankle and an unidentified body part recovered from an air crash; had sawed off a Marine’s arm so his body would fit in his casket; and had improperly stored and tracked other remains.

“What happened at Dover AFB exceeds on many levels the nationwide anger that resulted from reports of mistreated wounded at the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 2007 and reports of lost or misplaced graves at Arlington National Cemetery,” said Richard L. DeNoyer, the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “You only get one chance to return our fallen warriors to their families with all the dignity and respect they deserve from a grateful nation — and that mortuary affairs unit failed.”

Smith,spent more than four years trying to find out what happened to her husband’s remaining body parts before she learned of the landfill disposal. Sgt. 1st Class Scott R. Smith served more than 16 years in the Army and volunteered for dangerous duty defusing and destroying bombs in Iraq. He was killed when stepped on a pressure plate that triggered a buried bomb.

Gari-Lynn Smith said she believed that Dover officials would treat the remains with respect. The deceased soldier’s parents declined to comment. In April, Trevor Dean, a senior official at the Dover mortuary, informed her in a letter that some of her husband’s body parts were cremated and dumped in a landfill in King George County. In the letter, Dean listed her husband’s first name incorrectly, an oversight that Smith saw as yet another sign of disregard for her spouse.

“This has been nothing but a nightmare,” she said.

I would posit that all 8 years of Bush/Cheney was more or less a nightmare. Yet simpletons continue to listen to the disingenuous bullshit coming from the faux patriots in the Republican Party. I know I will offend some readers, but in my estimation, to be a Republican nowadays requires one to either be mentally ill or to have suffered a lobotomy. The lies and disingenuousness are simple mind numbing.