USAF dumps 274 troops' remains in Virgina landfill

[doc ace]

Don't know if this had been posted, search didn't reveal anything

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/...irginia-landfill-dover-air-base-jo-ann-rooney

 

[03protege]

This appears to be pretty old (Dec 2011), can anyone find a resolution on it?

That really is sickening, I am one of the belief that after I die it really doesn't matter what happens to my body... cause I will be dead. This is really just a spit in the face to the families of those who have died in the service of our country. They lost someone who could quite possibly meant everything to them and to the people they died for they are just garbage, literately.

 

[Sugarbug]

Disgraceful.

 

[JLouv]

I find this difficult to believe. More so if its a story from 2011.

 

[doc ace]

http://m.cbsnews.com/storysynopsis....landfill/&feed_id=1&videoid=37&catid=57339029

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...dumped-remains-of-274-troops-in-landfill?lite

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gpSjcAcOpWqyrg67B6FOHnaod_5Q

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2011/12/07/report-remains-of-troops_n_1135592.html


@JLouv this happened.

 

[Bradb4178]

WOW just WOW. You serve and die for your country and they dump your ashes in a landfill... This is just disgraceful and horrible. This story makes it seem like they like they are doing this on routine and not truly remembering the men and women that gave their life defending our country. Slap in the face.

 

[JLouv]

Amazing. I'm quick to believe horrible things, but I really don't want this to be so.

Even NBC & CBS covered it?!?. But they let it go? I wonder what honey bobo did to divert the nations attention?

There's a special place in hell for whomever signed off on this.

 

[returningliberty]

Man this really chaps my ass. My teeth were grating the entire I read it. why this didnt get televised coverage, I have no idea. Let's be honest, a bunch of body parts from unidentified troops stacking up in the morgues would obviously be a problem. A cremation of partial remains is understandable, and preferable to a mass grave. The way they're doing it now (article says ashes are spread at sea) is fine by me. But tossing ashes into a Landfill? REALLY? It's like they just conviently forget those were the bits and pieces of the very best of us. SOB's.

 

[TomTerrific]

This went thru the news cycle fairly shortly after it was public, a while back.

 

[Just A Number]

These procedures are not in place anymore, but just to put some perspective on the original practice before coming over all outraged on this issue, you might want to review the policies for disposing of human remains at your local hospital or coroner’s office. I'll grant that this "seems wrong" on many levels, but for the love of God, what do you expect these folks to be doing with this stuff? They are talking about cremating body parts and disposing of them. They are not disposing of 'bodies' in this manner.

Those of us who are outraged ought to be taking a look at what really goes on at a mortuary. Are you outraged that the blood from your loved ones' bodies goes down a drain and into the sewer system when they prepare a body for embalming? How do you feel about the tissue that likely stayed in the lab, when they did the autopsy?
It's human tissue, and there's a lot of it that's simply not easily categorized or typed. Do you want them to go to the expense of genotyping every bit of tissue returned to the US, when they're sometimes having to scrape up the remains? Unrealistic.

Yeah, I'll grant that the procedures could have been a little better. I'd rather that they had a Columbarium at Arlington for disposing of this stuff, but what's going on isn't that different than what goes on at every hospital, morgue, and funeral home here in the US. Outrage at what they did at Dover is a little misplaced, and I'd recommend people who are outraged do a little more research as to what really goes on at these places. You'd be amazed at how casually "medical waste" is handled, to include body parts. Ask the average person what they want done with the leg that just got amputated due to a car crash, and you'll find that that's the last thing on their minds. Meanwhile, something's got to be done with that tissue, and that "something" usually includes a landfill, after it's passed through an incinerator.

Personally, I'm a little disturbed at how the health care industry treats human remains when it comes to things like this. I don't know what the right answer is, but I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea that an amputated limb is just put into the trash. At the same time, I also don't know how I'd feel if the hospital offered me a complimentary urn containing the ashes from that leg, if I'd just had it taken off due to an accident.

The follow up here article here from 2011:
The Dover Air Force Base mortuary for years disposed of some dead troops’ body parts by burning them and dumping the ashes in a Virginia landfill, a practice that officials have since abandoned in favor of burying the remains at sea.
The Dover mortuary, which is the main point of entry for America’s war dead, sent remains to the landfill from 2003 until 2008, according to Air Force officials. The manner of disposal was typically withheld from the relatives of fallen service members. The disclosure comes in the aftermath of several federal investigations into mishandling of remains at the mortuary.
Air Force officials acknowledged the practice Wednesday in response to inquiries from The Washington Post. They said the procedure was limited to portions of body parts that were unable to be identified at first or were later recovered from the battlefield, and which family members had indicated could be disposed of by the military.
Lt. Gen. Darrell G. Jones, the Air Force’s deputy chief for personnel, said the body parts were first cremated, then incinerated, and then taken to a landfill by a military contractor. He could not explain why both cremation and incineration were necessary, but likened the process to disposing of medical waste.
Jones also could not estimate how many body parts were handled in this way. *That was the common practice at the time and since then our practices have improved,* he said.
An Air Force document shows that the landfill was in King George County, Va. Officials with Waste Management Inc., which operates the landfill, said it was kept in the dark about the origin of the ashes. *We were not specifically made aware of that process by the Air Force,* said Lisa Kardell, a spokeswoman for the company.
The Dover mortuary changed its policy in June 2008, Jones said. Since then, the Navy has placed the cremated remains of body parts in urns that are buried at sea.
Asked if it was appropriate or dignified to incinerate troops’ body parts and dispose of them in a landfill, Jones declined to answer directly. *We have recognized a much better way of doing things,* he said. *Let me be emphatic: I think the current procedures are better.*
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 he would fit in his casket; and had improperly stored and tracked other remains.

The Air Force disciplined three mortuary supervisors after an 18-month investigation, but has not fired any of them, despite calls from lawmakers and veterans’ groups for tougher action.

*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.*
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who earlier had commended the Air Force for the *thoroughness* of its investigation, backed away from that stance Wednesday. His spokesman, George Little, said that Panetta was leaving *open the possibility for further accountability* and that *there is no excuse for this kind of incident to occur.*
Under military culture and regulations, the armed services have a sacred obligation to care for fallen troops and their families. All troops killed overseas return to Dover in flag-draped transfer cases and are honored in what the military calls a *dignified transfer* ceremony.