It wasnt considered the Armys business in any of the other wars to conduct these services, said Alan H. Archambault,
Army officials said the idea to hold monthly services reflected a need to find balance between honoring the dead and the practical reality that the services take time to plan, including things like coordinating rifle salutes and arranging receptions for family members who attend.
Several other major bases, including Fort Hood in Texas, the largest, already hold services monthly. Some hold them even less frequently.
There is no Army-wide policy to have any memorial services, a spokeswoman for the Army, Maj. Cheryl Phillips, said in an e-mail message. Commanders make the call.
It seems to me that Fort Lewis and several other bases screwed up by offering individual services in the first place. Once a service is provided by the government (even the military, even for soldiers lost in battle), it becomes an entitlement, and people are understandably upset if it's taken away. If family members are part of the base community and want an on-base service in lieu of an off-base service, I would hope and expect that they could request a time and place for it, and arrange the other logistics themselves. However, expecting the military to handle all logistics for individual on-base services during times of high(er) casualties seems unreasonable to me.
By reducing it to once a month, I think theyre taking away from us, said Staff Sgt. Jason Angelle. Soldiers deserve individual honors.
So soldiers today deserve individual services, at separate ceremonies coordinated by their bases, even though soldiers who died in past wars didn't? What makes soldiers today more special than soldiers of past conflicts? Or is the sentiment that all sodiers in past wars should have had individual on-base ceremonies, too? It's a little late for that, isn't it?
I'll agree that whatever format the services take, they need to be respectful of fading soldiers. I just don't think respect demands one service per soldier.
Ms. Rothwell said she opposed monthly services. Individuals gave their lives, she said. But if you have services just once a month, the other 29 days you dont have to think about it. Well, isnt that convenient.
This has to be the worst criticism of the bunch. Anyone who doesn't go to the service doesn't have to think about it. Anyone who would go a service will likely be thinking about it every day, and most hours, for quite a while. You cannot force someone to mourn. Reasonable people do mourn, and they do it whether or not there are services offered by the military.
So, what do you two (and I'm sure many more here) see as the central problem with this new policy? Is it that every fallen soldier must be given an individual service, or that 1 month is too long to wait? Would it be less objectionable if the policy was to have services as needed, but no more than one per week? Or what about one service per battle/incident?
Those who have not served in the military probably don't understand it, but it offers closure to the bereaved family and the deceased's comrades, in an individual, personal manner that simply cannot be usurped by a monthly shindig.
I've not served, but having lost friends and family I understand completely.
If our government will no longer honor those who've given their lives in its service, how long will it be until those who serve refuse to risk their lives for our government?
This is BAD policy, very bad.
Yes, mourning needs to happen. But can they afford it?
I dunno, could those young men and women afford to lose their lives? If they are truly the 'defenders of our freedom', as this government claims, shouldn't they be held in the highest regard? Or are they, as some allege, just cannon fodder? Notwithstanding, does a funeral really cost all that much?
As much as we would like to think otherwise, I am afraid that with the number of soldiers we now have in harms way, our losses will preclude us from continuing to do individual memorial ceremonies, Brig. Gen. William Troy, who was the interim commander at Fort Lewis at the time, wrote in an e-mail message announcing the policy in May.
Time out!
I thought things were getting better in Iraq and that our casualties were supposed to be going down? IF that were true, then it would appear there is little reason to be instituting this policy now.
Of course, I stopped believing anything the Army told me back when I was in the Army.
Time out!
I thought things were getting better in Iraq and that our casualties were supposed to be going down? IF that were true, then it would appear there is little reason to be instituting this policy now.
Of course, I stopped believing anything the Army told me back when I was in the Army.
Eh, the fatality rate has been dropped a bit in the short term. Averaged over a longer time frame, not really. The total casuality rate, specifically of soldiers wounded beyond the capacity to return to duty, is the number you really need to worry about at the moment. The news only covers deathes, it does not ever include the number of soldiers who had to be medically discharged.
A recent thing I saw before I got out was college funding amusement. You paid $1200 (twelve installments of $100) for your Montgomery GI Bill benefits. Then the Army says they're out of money, so you can't get those benefits. Allegedly this has been fixed. A much more common issue is getting the check cut before the date at which your college requires tutition to be paid. Some colleges are helpful, others say pay up or leave.
Sigh.
RD
USA Signal Corps, 99-05
Meanwhile, Congress is eyeing ANOTHER pay raise by not voting the automatic increase.
WASHINGTON -- After raising the minimum wage by 70 cents an hour last week, many members of Congress are ready to give themselves a pay increase of roughly $4,400 per year.
That would take their annual salaries to nearly $170,000.
Campaigning last year, Democratic leaders said it would be wrong for Congress to accept a pay increase until it raised the minimum wage. That happened on Tuesday, when the minimum wage rose from $5.15 to $5.85 per hour; it will reach $7.25 an hour on July 24, 2009.
Cost-of-living increases are automatic for members of Congress unless they're voted down. The House of Representatives already has cleared the way for such a raise in 2008, but a bipartisan coalition is out to block it, with critics saying the money could be better spent during a time of war and high deficits.
''This is the people's money, and we need to use it on their priorities,'' said Republican Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri, who is co-sponsoring a bill to prevent the raise. ``Increasing the pay of members of Congress is not their priority.''
Continues at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/509/story/186647.html
That same month, the base announced a change in how it would honor its dead: instead of units holding services after each death, they would be held collectively once a month.
The first thing that reminded me of was my first job out of grad school: the company was slowly bleeding to death, and people were quitting by ones and twos, and then by threes and fives... At first, they'd have a sendoff party with a cake for the person leaving. Then they started having a "group sendoff" on Fridays for everyone who had quit that week. When I left, I can't remember if there was any sendoff at all.
My buddy was still there when they folded. They gathered everyone in the conference room for the announcement. They didn't have a cake, but my buddy thought it would've been a nice touch.
"Hey, who's the cake for?"
"Why, it's for all of you!"
--Len.