Honoring our fallen heroes

Image by Beverly & Pack via Flickr

It was a poignant moment for me, if a bit flustering.  My grandfather and I were sitting at breakfast last Monday morning, Memorial Day, following a cousin's wedding over the weekend, and my grandfather asked me why the news never shows videos of flag-draped caskets returning our fallen soldiers from battle anymore?  His remark was a simple one, that those soldiers deserve to be honored for their sacrifices, and that it seems that everyone has forgotten that we're still at war these days.  I didn't have a good response for him, beyond my wholly unsatisfying initial reaction that most likely the news media didn't see any profits in devoting airtime to returning caskets from our wars overseas.  My grandfather asked me that I do some investigation into the matter, and that I post whatever I found on my blog, since he's a subscriber, and would be interested to see what I dug up.

First, a bit of background.

My grandfather, William G. Moir, or "Fahtie," as we grandchildren know him, is a Navy veteran who served in the Pacific theater in WWII.  Like many veterans, Fahtie has never spoken much about his experience in the war, or at least, he has never volunteered information about his service.  Since my childhood I have always felt as though he was a man who served his country proudly and bravely, but that when he returned to civilian life, he dedicated himself to providing a good life for his family (which later grew to 7 children) and never much sought to relive his experience through retelling it to his offspring.  More likely, Fahtie just never had the time nor inclination to turn his personal war story into a shared family story; working as a traveling salesman, raising many children, putting himself through night school for an MBA from the University of Chicago...it sounds like he had plenty else to do.

But nevertheless, the sheer lack of Fahtie's war story over the course of my childhood created a situation where even his glancing references to his experience, or to topics surrounding the military, elicit a feeling of import, of significance, for me.

And so it was this past Monday morning; Fahtie's seemingly simple question as to why we never see images of the fallen returning home from war struck me to the quick, and I felt...shame.  Shame for our consumerist modern culture that has neither the time nor the attention span to honor those who have sacrificed on our collective behalf; shame for the fact that a solemn event has been politicized in our hyper-partisan world.  I wanted to honor the fact that Fahtie had entrusted me with his feeling of outrage at the lack of honor accorded to our fallen heroes, to somehow find a way to redeem his faith in modern America, and thereby to redeem my own and future generations in his eyes as we collectively move further away from the historical and proper treatment of the war dead...but there was no way to do it.  Our world, our culture as it is constructed today, can never offer the kind of respect and dignity that is deserved by those who sacrificed all, and yet, I believe that we're doing slightly better these days.

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Tonight I began searching around online to find out what exactly the story was behind President Obama's decision to allow the media to film returning caskets when they arrive at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.  What began as a simple Google search has taken me far beyond what I initially had imagined.

First, CNN's initial report announcing President Obama's decision from February 2009:

The Pentagon will lift its ban on media coverage of the flag-draped coffins of war victims arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday.

But the families of the victims will have the final say on whether to allow the coverage, he said. President Obama asked Gates to review the policy, and Gates said he decided after consulting with the armed services and groups representing military families to apply the same policy that is used at Arlington National Cemetery.

"I have decided that the decision regarding media coverage of the dignified transfer process at Dover should be made by those most directly affected -- the families," he said at a news conference.

The report mentions the controversy surrounding the decision to lift the ban and covers both sides, but further searching revealed a nuanced article from the Columbus Dispatch:

The arrival of war dead at Dover has long pitted free-speech advocates against the government, which had been accused of using the ban to hide the horror of war from the public.

In 2004, Vice President Joe Biden, then a U.S. senator from Delaware, said, "The idea that they are essentially snuck back into the country under the cover of night so no one can see that their casket has arrived, I just think is wrong."

This year, the Obama administration sought a middle ground. Defense Secretary Robert Gates lifted the ban but said families should decide whether the media cover the homecomings of the fallen: "We ought not presume to make that decision in their place."

The fact that military families are now at least afforded a choice of whether they wish for media to be allowed to cover the arrival of their loved one appears to me to be a step in the right direction, however with the lifting of the ban, the expectations for media coverage appear to have left some families slightly surprised:

So Gloria Crothers of Edgewood, Md., was a little taken aback when just two news crews appeared for the arrival of the bodies of her son, Army Sgt. Michael Heede, and another soldier from Maryland. She wasn't so much disappointed as surprised, she said. "I was told there could be quite a few" news crews.

But a few is the norm, said Maj. Carl Grusnick, an Air Force spokesman. Often the only professional journalist is a lone AP photographer. 

"The feeling is that somewhere there is a hometown, a family, a newspaper for whom the homecoming of the soldier is very important news," said Paul Colford, an AP spokesman. "So we have made the commitment to covering each and every one of those at Dover."

The AP is doing an honorable thing, covering each and every arrival (that they are allowed to) which is as much of a public service as anything else.  Further searching turned up the AP's online archives of all of their images of caskets returning from overseas - they refer to them as "casualty returns." The images are there for commercial purchase and use, but as a rough guide to the procedures and ceremonies around the casualty returns, they are quite poignant.

Continuing from there, the Columbus Dispatch ends its article on a far more upbeat note that I believe sums up exactly why we ought to film the casualty returns in the first place:

Since the media ban was lifted, the military also started paying for families to travel to Dover to welcome their loved ones home. More than 70 percent of families have made the trip.

That's what mattered to Shane Wilhelm of Plymouth, Ohio: being there for the quiet, white-gloved military rite. Wilhelm said it made him feel proud of his 19-year-old son, Army Pvt. Keiffer Wilhelm, and of his country.

"It was representative of the United States, that's the way I viewed it," he said. "It shook me to the bone, but it made me feel proud instead of having all that grief. All these people are here all because of my son."

The ritual, the honor afforded to the dead is presumably a key element in a family's grieving process, and if it helped Mr. Wilhelm to be able to attend his son's arrival in person, then that would appear to be a great addition to the military's services to surviving family members.

But all that aside, why aren't we seeing more coverage on TV, as Fahtie asked me to investigate?  A CNN article ominously entitled "Interest in photographing return of war dead to U.S. wanes" gives some insight:

Of those 472 (casualty returns), about 260 -- or 55 percent -- have been open to media coverage, according to statistics from the Mortuary Affairs office. And over the past year, the media attendance has dropped off to a trickle.

"Those numbers reflect that the interest in covering the story diminishes as the story becomes repetitive," said Ralph Begleiter, a former network correspondent and now professor of communications at the University of Delaware....

...Many major news organizations rely on the fact that The Associated Press is covering these events, and will keep the images as they are brought in, but often they are still not used.

"Just because things are covered does not mean the public sees it. Lots and lots of things are covered [by news organizations] but then never actually end up on the air," Begleiter said.

So we see that the majority of families are opting to have their loved ones' arrivals open to media coverage, yet the media isn't covering the arrivals beyond perhaps buying the AP's photos of the event.  My hunch, borne out by the facts over the last 9 years of war, is that there is not a shared sense of loss among the public because there is not a shared burden from the wars we are fighting among the public.  In the days of an all-volunteer military, with the prospects of a draft being negligible (barring catastrophe,) the vast majority of the suffering and the hardships of war will fall on those families whose loved ones chose to serve.  And yet, there are striking reminders of the private tolls endured by families out there in the world if one looks for them.

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If it's not apparent, all throughout this article I've been interspersing links to various other websites, photo archives, and news reports, and those various resources out there led me to the conclusion I've finally come to: while our society may be too stratified, too hectic, too narcissistic in the aggregate to honor our returning war dead in the unified way we used to when there were only three major news networks, the sheer volume of information and resources out there far exceed what was possible in the Vietnam era.  Beyond that, there are amazing communities of people who gather online (and in person, naturally) to share stories, remembrances, and to honor the dead, far more than I have represented here.

And just to show that the world is full of "surprises," I would like to make note that at the infamous liberal website DailyKos.com (itself founded by Markos Moulitsas, a military veteran) there is an ongoing series of diary posts entitled "IGTNT" meaning "I got the news today," which honor those who have died serving in our armed forces.  The description of the IGTNT series follows below (note that there are a number of online avatars/usernames sprinkled throughout, which makes for awkward sentences if you're not familiar with the use of avatars):

I Got the News Today is a diary series intended to honor, respect and remind. This series, which was begun by i dunno, is currently maintained by Sandy on Signal, noweasels, monkeybiz, silvercedes, MsWings, greenies, blue jersey mom, Chacounne, Wee Mama, twilight falling, labwitchy, moneysmith, joyful, roses, SisTwo, Avila,a girl in MI and me, SpamNunn.

These diaries are heartbreaking to write, but, we believe, an important service to those Americans who have died, and to our community’s respect for and remembrance of them. If you would like to volunteer, even once a month, please contact Sandy on Signal, monkeybiz, or noweasels.

As you read this diary, please consider that the families and friends of those profiled here also may read it and that many members of our community have served in the Armed Services of the United States of America.  I hope that our comments tonight will demonstrate our respect for the sacrifices of our fallen military and our compassion for their families, whatever our personal or political feelings about the current war or any war happen to be.

While the vast majority of DailyKos users oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this just goes to show that even peaceniks can rally around our troops and honor their sacrifices.  A particularly touching diary post is here, about the recently-identified remains of two WWII pilots who were lost over Germany.

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So ultimately, Fahtie, I don't have a good answer for you.  I've spent quite a few hours working on this blog posting now, and I suppose the topic of how we honor our war dead, and why it is different than before, will be one I will have to investigate further and return to in the future.