My friend Angela, a sister Seabee wife, passed this on to me in an email this morning. I had seen rumblings in the news and tweets on twitter over the last couple of days but this week has been so busy, I hadn’t really paid full attention to it.
I don’t believe the media should have unlimited access on this issue – it should be the personal decision of the family whether or not photos of their deceased loved one are released to the public. While I agree that all Americans should have the right to show their respect to our fallen soldiers, unfortunately, military families especially know too well that most media have a liberal agenda for using those photos for purposes that the family may not support or agree with. How many times have I seen stories of lawsuits where parents of a soldier have had to sue someone who has put their fallen son or daughter’s name and picture on a t-shirt protesting the war? There is free speech and then there is abuse of free speech.
Whatever your stance on the issue (see the article below for more information), I invite you to make your voice known to Secretary Gates. I will be doing that this weekend.
Secretary of Defense Contact Info:
Public Inquiries for the office of the Secretary of Defense.
703-428-0711
Note: The people answering the phone are only taking the info, not making the decision, just passing your thoughts along to the appropriate person.
Fax: 703-695-1219
The better avenue is to write a letter to Dr. Gates.
His address is:
Secretary of Defense
Dr. Robert M. Gates
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000
Photo ban on caskets of soldiers might end
Gates requests a review after some say survivors should decide the extent of publicity.
By Lara Jakes The Associated Press
02/11/2009 01:10:43 AM MST
Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered a review Tuesday of a Pentagon policy banning media from taking pictures of flag-draped coffins of military dead, signaling that he was open to overturning the policy to better honor fallen soldiers.
At least two Democratic senators have called on President Barack Obama to let news photographers attend ceremonies at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and other military facilities when military remains are returned to the United States. Obama told reporters Monday he was reviewing the ban.
“If the needs of the families can be met and the privacy concerns can be addressed, the more honor we can accord these fallen heroes, the better,” Gates said at a Pentagon news conference Tuesday. “So I’m pretty open to whatever the results of this review may be.”
Gates said he initially asked for the ban to be reviewed a year ago and was advised then that family members might feel uncomfortable with opening the ceremonies to media for privacy reasons or pressure to attend them despite financial costs.
The ban was put in place in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush. But some exceptions to the policy were made, allowing the media to photograph coffins in some cases, until the administration of President George W. Bush and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In a letter Monday to Obama, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said the Pentagon should develop a new policy to allow “respectful” media coverage while protecting the privacy of the victims and their families.
John Ellsworth, president of Military Families United who lost a son in Iraq in 2004, said the survivors should be able to decide whether the coffins should be photographed.
“Some people want to celebrate the lives of their fallen and share their fallen hero with the American people,” he said, “while others want to hold them a little closer to the vest and keep it private. We should respect that.
“It shouldn’t be up to the government to hide these images to the public. But at the same time, I don’t know that we can allow the press to overstep the bounds of good taste in some of these instances.”
A University of Delaware professor who unsuccessfully sued to force the government to release pictures of flag-draped coffins returning home said taxpayers should see the cost of war.
“Of course, we respect the families, but none of these caskets is identified in any way, and there’s no invasion of privacy in the first place,” said Ralph Begleiter, a professor at the University of Delaware and a former CNN world-affairs correspondent.
The fallen troops “died for all of us — they died for the nation, they died for the cause,” Begleiter said in a January interview. “It’s a right for all Americans to pay their respects for those who made the sacrifice. It is not a right held exclusively for the families themselves.”
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This bothers me on so many levels. “It’s a right for all Americans to pay their respects for those who made the sacrifice. It is not a right held exclusively for the families themselves.”
That quote in particular bothered me the most! It is no ones right to see that. It is the families right to have their wishes respected. It is NOT something that the government should be sticking their nose into. I would hate to have my privacy invaded like that at such an emotional time, and then have the photographs used in a manner in which I did not approve. Thank you for sharing this with me, I had no idea this was going on.
Oh! I should have checked in here earlier. I didn’t know about the information for contacting Dr. Gates. I will definitely get a letter out. I was so disturbed by this I couldn’t hardly see straight last week. That and the complete disregard for the suggestions of the Generals on the ground in Afghanistan. Complete and total disregard.
~Cat