Source:
Daily KosWe heard the first part of this gruesome story a month ago when Craig Whitlock and Greg Jaffe at the Washington Post told it. For five years, as the wars in Iraq took the lives of thousands of U.S. troops, officials at the Dover Air Force Base mortuary took the remains of some of the dead, cremated them and unceremoniously tossed them in a Virginia landfill.
The secretive dumping, the subject of an 18-month-long investigation, was deliberately concealed from the families of the dead. They had authorized cremation and "burial" of the partial remains that would be done in a respectful way. The practice ended in June 2008 and was replaced by burial at sea. Even though the Air Force never formally approved of the dumping and it did not meet military regulations, nobody has been fired or disciplined for it. The Air Force has no plans to tell the families of the dead what happened.
At the time the original story was written, it was not known how many remains were treated this way. And it still isn't certain. But, according to the Post's latest piece on the subject by Whitlock and Mary Pat Flaherty, the cremated partial remains of at least 274 troops were dumped in the landfill, more than previously acknowledged.
Anyone who has lost a loved one and not recovered the body, no matter how damaged it might be, or known the body was "disposed of" but not exactly how or where, understands full well the feelings of Gari-Lynn Smith. Portions of her husband’s remains were dumped in the landfill after he died in Iraq in 2006
Read more:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/08/1043456/-Excuses-dont-cut-it-in-Air-Forces-dumping-of-war-dead-remains-Accounting-needed-And-some-respect
Now I guess we know why the Bush Administration prohibited photographing at Dover, they didn't want us to see the garbage trucks taking away the ashes of the soldiers.
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