Sen. Dean Heller sponsors bill to bring remains of American sailors back from Tripoli

By Karoun Demirjian

Published Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011 | 1:38 p.m.

Updated Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011 | 9:14 p.m.

Nevada Sen. Dean Heller introduced a bill this week, along with Sens. John Boozman of Arkansas and Scott Brown of Massachusetts, to repatriate the remains of 13 sailors who were buried in mass graves at Tripoli during the First Barbary War in 1804.

“Our nation has a responsibility to make sure that any fallen member of the Armed Forces is treated with respect. For more than 200 years, these sailors have laid to rest in a cemetery on foreign soil,” Heller said. “It’s past time that we give these men a proper military burial in the country they died defending.”

This is not a constituent move, as the U.S.S. Intrepid -- a ship loaded with explosives that had entered the harbor off the Libyan capitol of Tripoli on a mission, but blew up prematurely, killing Captain Richard Somers of New Jersey and the rest of those aboard -- went down about 60 years before Nevada became a state.

House Intelligence chairman Mike Rogers and New Jersey Rep. Frank LoBiondo have been pushing a similar bill in the House. It’s been a particular interest of Rogers’ since he first learned of the graves on a visit to Libya in 2004; in 2006, the bodies were partially exhumed but then re-buried.

The Department of Defense has not been too eager to arrange for the transfer of the soldiers, as the mission would likely be a Pandora’s box, paving the way for further repatriation requests from other wars. (For example, there are over 5,000 fallen American soldiers from World War II buried in Luxembourg alone.)

The soldiers from U.S.S. Intrepid were given a ceremonial burial in 1947, 242 years after the conclusion of hostilities of the First Barbary War -- the first of two, in fact, fought to bring an end to the frequent and expensive acts of piracy conducted by the “Barbary states” (Morocco, Algiers, and Tripoli) against U.S. vessels.

The wars were the first wartime venture for the U.S. Navy under the newly-organized Department of the Navy (est. 1798), and ended the practice of paying tribute to local sultans to keep the pirates at bay.

The American Legion and the VFW are backing both the House and Senate bills.