Editorial: War’s casualties revealed

Sunday, Oct. 16, 2005 | 10:39 a.m.

As the U.S. Army launched an investigation into how soldiers' families are notified when their loved ones are killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, an Illinois couple questioned the dignity with which military personnel's coffins are handled when they arrive back home.

Gay and Fred Eisenhauer recalled for the Associated Press last week how they traveled to Lambert Airport in St. Louis in May to retrieve the coffin containing the body of their son, Army Pfc. Wyatt Eisenhauer. The casket, draped with an American flag, was tucked away with other cargo in a crate-filled area of the airport, where workers took their breaks and smoked cigarettes nearby. It was a cold, crude atmosphere for an already tragic reunion.

The Eisenhauers' experience provides a striking symbol of the lack of dignity with which these soldiers and their families have been treated by the government, from the failure to provide adequate armor for soldiers' bodies and battle vehicles to the manner in which some families have been notified that their loved ones have died.

The Army initiated its review of death notifications this week after families complained that they were given incorrect information as to how or when their loved ones died.

Former President George H.W. Bush issued a ban on media coverage of coffins returning to Dover Air Force Base during the Gulf War in 1991 to protect, he claimed, military families' privacy and respect. But the Eisenhauers' experience was hardly private or respectful, and it likely is not isolated. What happened to them almost certainly wouldn't have happened if the public was watching.

The American people don't need to be "protected" from seeing the indignities and suffering brought about by a government that is waging war with their money and the lives of their children. They need to see.