US Cremated Troops at Facility That Also Handles Pets

The Pentagon is recommending changes in the handling of
troops' remains, after it was revealed that a crematorium contracted by the
military handles both human and animal cremations.

Read HuffPost's WarWire

John Eskow

George Bush, Dick Cheney, and John McCain are sending a razor-sharp message
to the fighting men and women of America.

It's underlined again in bright, fresh, blood-red every time a tank in
Bahgdad is blown up by an IED and shrapnel rips into another soldier's flesh.

It's written in script-letters of grimy dust along the floors and walls of
fly-infested VA hospitals.

It's spelled out in the invisible ink of the GI Bill that's still not
passed -- the critically-important Webb/Hagel bill, sponsored by two gutsy
Senators (and veterans) with the courage not to quit in the face of
cold-blooded Bush/McCain resistance.

That secret message is everywhere the American soldier and veteran looks
nowadays. But it's a secret message that's not really all that secret -- it
goes something like this: pssst. Hey dude and dudette. Come. Be All You Can
Be. We'll sing you national anthems and write you flowery speeches. We'll
solemnly call you the pride of a nation, the Best of the Best, as we Stop-Loss
you back to Iraq
for tour after tour. But then, goddamn it--if you DO manage somehow to keep
your ass from gettin' blowed up, and find your way back home, you're on your
own. Understand?

To which The Happy Warrior, John McCain, might add: This is America,
"my friends!" Do what I did! Marry some billionaire Cruella-de-Ville
lookin' chick, and you won't NEED health-care for your war injuries! Over
and over, McCain has chosen tax-breaks for the rich over the desperate needs of
our wounded GIs. Whatever his private reasons, in addition to fighting non-stop
to block the GI bill, McCain has -- as reported by Aaron Glantz, author of The
War Comes Home:

-- voted against nearly every effort to increase funding for healthcare and
disability benefits for wounded soldiers

-- voted against the interests of disabled American veterans 80 percent of
the time

-- received a D+ voting grade from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of
America (when Obama got a B+, and Clinton, to her lasting credit, an A-)

--consistently voted against expanding mental healthcare and readjustment
counseling for service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, efforts to
expand treatment for injured veterans, and proposals to lower co-payments and
enrollment fees veterans must pay to obtain prescription drugs.

And it goes without saying that the ex-bomber-pilot never lifted a finger to
help Mary Tillman, as she struggled valiantly -- through one Pentagon lie after
another -- in a lonely quest to find out what really killed her heroic son Pat.

Some maverick, huh?

Comments:

Oh, gosh, you caught me at a well medicated moment: I have to wonder, Once our brave soldiers are dead in this Bush phenomenon we are calling a war, I don't think they give a damn one way or another whose ashes their ashes mingle with. I can feel the gut response their family members, must feel on learning this. Grim stuff.

He's never made me real proud to be an American, and has supported George Bush in his many efforts to strip away our Constitutional Rights. I think he is cut from the same cloth as Bush, just with different lighting.

comment by thestephymore on May 12, 2008 1:32 AM ()

Perhaps he was a 'maverick' the first time around, but he has lost whatever he had that was worthwhile.

reply by bumpedoff on May 12, 2008 3:31 AM ()