There's only so much ignorance that a body can take

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provided by the President who is all too eager to see them die but never had the guts to put is own life on the line for his country, then YOU are the one who doesn't care about our troops.

I hope this family is able to effect a change in this. This would be something worth quitting your job and marching for change. I'm heartbroken reading of the audacity of the military to ship a fallen soldier as freight. This has to be a mistake. Pinch me I'm dreaming...Democrat.

Family Upset Over Soldier's Body Arriving As Freight

Bodies Sent To Families On Commercial Airliners

SAN DIEGO -- There's controversy over how the military is transporting the bodies of service members killed overseas, 10News reported.

A local family said fallen soldiers and Marines deserve better and that one would think our war heroes are being transported with dignity, care and respect. It said one would think upon arrival in their hometowns they are greeted with honor. But unfortunately, the family said that is just not the case.

Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag -- greeted by a color guard.

But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners -- stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo.

John Holley and his wife, Stacey, were stunned when they found out the body of their only child, Matthew John Holley, who died in Iraq last month, would be arriving at Lindbergh Field as freight.

Matthew was a medic with the 101st Airborne unit and died on Nov. 15.

When someone dies in combat, they need to give them due respect they deserve for (the) sacrifice they made, said John Holley.

John and Stacey Holley, who were both in the Army, made some calls, and with the help of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, Matthew was greeted with honor and respect.

Our familiarity with military protocol and things of that sort allowed us to kind of put our foot down -- we're not sure other parents have that same knowledge, said Stacey Holley.

The Holleys now want to make sure every fallen hero gets the proper welcome.

The bodies of dead service members arrive at Dover Air Force Base.

From that point, they are sent to their families on commercial airliners.

Reporters from 10News called the Defense Department for an explanation. A representative said she did not know why this is happening.

Previous Story:

Army Orders Soldiers to Shed Dragon Skin or Lose SGLI Death Benefits

By Nathaniel R. Helms

Two deploying soldiers and a concerned mother reported Friday afternoon that the U.S. Army appears to be singling out soldiers who have purchased Pinnacle's Dragon Skin Body Armor for special treatment. The soldiers, who are currently staging for combat operations from a secret location, reported that their commander told them if they were wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin and were killed their beneficiaries might not receive the death benefits from their $400,000 SGLI life insurance policies. The soldiers were ordered to leave their privately purchased body armor at home or face the possibility of both losing their life insurance benefit and facing disciplinary action.

The soldiers asked for anonymity because they are concerned they will face retaliation for going public with the Army's apparently new directive. At the sources' requests DefenseWatch has also agreed not to reveal the unit at which the incident occured for operational security reasons.

On Saturday morning a soldier affected by the order reported to DefenseWatch that the directive specified that all commercially available body armor was prohibited. The soldier said the order came down Friday morning from Headquarters, United States Special Operations Command (HQ, USSOCOM), located at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. It arrived unexpectedly while his unit was preparing to deploy on combat operations. The soldier said the order was deeply disturbiing to many of the men who had used their own money to purchase Dragon Skin because it will affect both their mobility and ballistic protection.

We have to be able to move. It (Dragon Skin) is heavy, but it is made so we have mobility and the best ballistic protection out there. This is crazy. And they are threatening us with our benefits if we don't comply. he said.

The soldier reiterated Friday's reports that any soldier who refused to comply with the order and was subsequently killed in action could be denied the $400,000 death benefit provided by their SGLI life insurance policy as well as face disciplinary action.

As of this report Saturday morning the Army has not yet responded to a DefenseWatch inquiry.

Recently Dragon Skin became an item of contention between proponents of the Interceptor OTV body armor generally issued to all service members deploying in combat theaters and its growing legion of critics. Critics of the Interceptor OTV system say it is ineffective and inferior to Dragon Skin, as well as several other commercially available body armor systems on the market. Last week DefenseWatch released a secret Marine Corps report that determined that 80% of the 401 Marines killed in Iraq between April 2004 and June 2005 might have been saved if the Interceptor OTV body armor they were wearing was more effective. The Army has declined to comment on the report because doing so could aid the enemy, an Army spokesman has repeatedly said.

A U.S. Army spokesman was not available for comment at the time DW's original report (Friday - 1700 CST) was published. DefenseWatch continues to seek a response from the Army and will post one as soon as it becomes available. Yesterday the DoD released a news story through the Armed Forces News Service that quoted Maj. Gen. Steven Speaks, the Army's director of force development, who countered critical media reports by denying that the U.S. military is behind the curve in providing appropriate force protection gear for troops deployed to Iraq and elsewhere in the global war against terrorism. The New York Tiimes and Washington Post led the bandwagon of mainstream media that capitalized on DefenseWatch's release of the Marine Corps study. Both newspapers released the forensic information the Army and Marines are unwilling to discuss.

Those headlines entirely miss the point, Speaks said.

The effort to improve body armor has been a programmatic effort in the case of the Army that has gone on with great intensity for the last five months, he noted.

Speaks' assessment contradicts earlier Army, Marine and DoD statements that indicated as late as last week that the Army was certain there was nothing wrong with Interceptor OTV body armor and that it was and remains the best body armor in the world.

One of the soldiers who lost his coveted Dragon Skin is a veteran operator. He reported that his commander expressed deep regret upon issuing his orders directing him to leave his Dragon Skin body armor behind. The commander reportedly told his subordinates that he had no choice because the orders came from very high up and had to be enforced, the soldier said. Another soldier's story was corroborated by his mother, who helped defray the $6,000 cost of buying the Dragon Skin, she said.

The mother of the soldier, who hails from the Providence, Rhode Island area, said she helped pay for the Dragon Skin as a Christmas present because her son told her it was so much better than the Interceptor OTV they expected to be issued when arriving in country for a combat tour.

He didn't want to use that other stuff, she said. He told me that if anything happened to him I am supposed to raise hell.

At the time the orders were issued the two soldiers had already loaded their Dragon Skin body armor onto the pallets being used to air freight their gear into the operational theater, the soldiers said. They subsequently removed it pursuant to their orders.

Currently nine U.S. generals stationed in Afghanistan are reportedly wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin body armor, according to company spokesman Paul Chopra. Chopra, a retired Army chief warrant officer and 20+-year pilot in the famed 160th Nightstalkers Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), said his company was merely told the generals wanted to evaluate the body armor in a combat environment. Chopra said he did not know the names of the general officers wearing the Dragon Skin.

Pinnacle claims more than 3,000 soldiers and civilians stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan are wearing Dragon Skin body armor, Chopra said. Several months ago DefenseWatch began receiving anecdotal reports from individual soldiers that they were being forced to remove all non-issue gear while in theater, including Dragon Skin body armor, boots, and various kinds of non-issue ancillary equipment.

Last year the DoD, under severe pressure from Congress, authorized a one-time $1,000 reimbursement to soldiers who had purchased civilian equipment to supplement either inadequate or unavailable equipment they needed for combat operations. At the time there was no restriction on what the soldiers could buy as long as it was specifically intended to offer personal protection or further their mission capabilities while in theater.

I just love it when people try to wallow around in righteous, indignant self pity. If you're so concerned about the plight of the Jewish people, why don't you go and help out your grandmother?

Ask yourself this question. Since Great Britian and the UN thought so highly of Jews as to actually declare them a separate nation, why didn't they create that nation in Europe? My guess is that there were 2 reasons. Number one would have to be the *not in my backyard phenomenon.* The other was simply as a controlling interest in the region. The reality is that Britian didn't give a rat's butt about the Jews. They just picked the most susceptible minds (at the time) to carry out their plans. They sold the idea of backing Isreal through religion and still do, just like the US does. One big clue to this is exactly how much we actually back Israel. We have brought them up to the level of nukes while they are still just fighting against homemade bombs. We (the US) look the other way when Israel kills hundreds of Palestinians, but will run a prime time special if 2 (not 200, just 2) Israelis are killed. Yeah, that's a fair fight. We back other leaders in the middle east, but only to a point (Saddam for example). Once they get to a point where they may actually become a threat to Israel (a holding interest for the west) we always manage to call them a threat for some other reason and level the playing field.

I really wish people would look at the big picture on this one. From a political standpoint, Israel is nothing more than a bishop in a chess game.

by ill-informed punkinheads who pretend to know something about our political situation. Just spewing the same worn out talking points that don't amount to squat.

As a Christian, I would appreciate it if people would leave this type of subject out of our children's education. It is not unreasonable to ask since we have given up God and prayer in the schools to accommodate those who do not believe.

There are some people who will ridicule the act as well as the person as you can clearly see when we get on the subject of homosexuality. But you cannot group all of us into this category. I do not agree with that lifestyle but having no reason to treat them poorly. That is what I want to teach my children. We may not agree but we cannot be mean to them.

However, I cannot stand by and allow the teaching that homosexuality is okay. It is too controversial of a topic for that to be taught in schools.....just like religion. I can teach my children acceptance of people without teaching acceptance of a lifestyle we don't agree with and I would appreciate it if schools wouldn't undermine my authority on that subject.

You don't see me going around forcing religion on children who I know has parents who don't believe in God and don't want their kids hearing about God.

Give up on trying to reason with this MT person. When she still doesn't get it - even when her actual words are presented to her - this is not a normal mind.