Just found this article onMilitary.com

[Homer Wells]

I could not believe this s**t. Now our guys aren't even worthy of dignified on their last trip home!!!

"Soldier's Casket on Baggage Cart"

Associated Press | December 01, 2006
ROCHESTER, N.Y. - The Army is investigating a woman's claim that a Soldier's flag-draped casket was placed in an airport baggage cart with other luggage while being transferred between airline flights.

"The Army is always concerned with treating all of our fallen comrades' remains with the utmost dignity and respect," spokesman Lt. Col. Kevin Arata said in a statement Thursday.

Cynthia Hoag, 56, a former Army reservist, said she was waiting for a flight at Rochester International Airport on Oct. 27 when she saw the coffin taken off a commercial flight along with passengers' luggage. A uniformed Soldier accompanied the coffin as it was placed in a baggage car and transported to another flight, she said.

"At the very least, couldn't there have been a hearse to transport the fallen Soldier?" Hoag asked in an essay in Tuesday's Democrat and Chronicle newspaper. "At the very least, couldn't there have been a group of Soldiers to receive one of their own?

"It was a very sobering, sad experience for all of us," wrote Hoag, who said she witnessed the episode from a terminal window while waiting for a flight along with her sister-in-law and two friends. "Please don't let this happen again to any Soldier. Let's not treat our fallen troops like baggage."

Her account prompted Monroe County's executive, Maggie Brooks, to write a letter of her own to the Pentagon, asking it to change the policy for transporting the coffins of war casualties.

A Pentagon spokeswoman, Cynthia Smith, said Hoag's description doesn't correlate with military procedure.

Remains of Soldiers killed in Iraq are taken to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, then usually flown to a Soldier's home, Smith said. Military escorts accompany each flight and when a casket reaches the home area, it is met by an honor guard of two people and then transported to a funeral home, she said.

Airport director David Damelio disputed Hoag's claims, saying a coffin wouldn't fit into a cart loaded with luggage.

Calls to Hoag's home in Dansville, 50 miles south of Rochester, went unanswered Thursday.

This should NOT happen!!

[Monkeyman]

1. Its happens a lot

8 times I know of

[lonestarnot]

2. Just a number on a cart.

[Gregorian]

3. The administration that cares about the right to life.

And profit. You know, it's cost effective. Well, unless it's a Halliburton contract.


It's not hypocrisy to them. It's whatever makes the most business sense.

$200 billion dollar airplanes are ok. $1000 funeral with due respects? Where the payoff in that? Take a hike. We've got an agenda.

[Warpy]

4. This has appeared before

and yes, if the family wants him buried in a family plot at home, his body will be shipped cargo. Bodies are shipped cargo all the time.

What, you think they should have bought him a seat?

I think the main complaint was the baggage cart between planes. To have an ambulance there for transport would have been hideously expensive, a hearse even more so, for a distance of a hundred yards or less.

Plus there's the problem of non airport vehicles on the field. There could easily have been a safety issue with that.

I'm much more upset that he was in a flag draped coffin in the first place. It's so unnecessary, all this death so a pantywaist illegally installed into office can show up his old man.

[Monkeyman]

5. Thats what pissed me off once before

The Flag Draped Coffin is our way to respect a fallen Brother. If you ever served you would understand that. Its not about Dubba ITS ABOUT THE FALLEN HERO IN THE COFFIN

[Warpy]

7. It would have been worse to remove the flag

wouldn't it? My guess is that will be policy from now on and that's a shame, just to keep busybodies from squawking.

Remember, he did have a one soldier guard traveling with him to make sure proper respect was paid.

Now, throwing him in with the baggage and having that coffin pop out onto the baggage claim carousel would have gotten me and a lot of other people very upset, rightly so. However, using an airport vehicle to transport his body BETWEEN PLANES is another thing.

[rocktivity]

6. Then you unload the coffin FIRST

put in on an EMPTY baggage cart, and have the local military base send a representative to escort the coffin and its escort to the next plane, and don't leave until it's loaded FIRST.


rocknation

[Warpy]

8. That's certainly how it should be done

and "on a baggage cart" was all I heard.

I can't believe the soldier traveling with him didn't raise a rumpus if they'd loaded it on the cart then buried it under suitcases.

[Historic NY]

9. I've raise hell over this before................

all the military has to do is to alert the local police, sheriff, fire dept, legion hall, etc. There will be enough personal there to move the coffin with dignity.

This just makes me angry and so upset.

[radwriter0555]

10. Being a government employee is no longer the honorable station it once was,

so it seems.

[Habibi]

11. Response from military:

"December 1, 2006 12:21 pm — The Defense Department this morning said the U.S. Army followed proper policies in its transport of a dead soldier’s coffin last month at the Greater Rochester International Airport.

The Pentagon said that proper military honors were performed during the off-loading of the coffin. And because airports do not normally allow hearses on the runway, a separate cart carried the remains to a cargo holding area to load into a hearse.

“At no time were the soldier’s remains moved with other luggage or baggage,” read a printed statement released today."

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic...