thedrifter
06-26-08, 07:37 AM
The fallen get a quiet salute at runways in Afghanistan, Iraq
By David Zucchino and Rick Loomis
Los Angeles Times
FORWARD OPERATING BASE BASTION, Afghanistan — The word went out across the flight line: "Ramp ceremony!"
Two "angels," the remains of a U.S. Marine and his Afghan interpreter, were about to be loaded onto a cargo plane Friday night. Four dozen soldiers and Marines quickly lined the runway to pay a final, poignant tribute to the dead.
Ramp ceremonies have become painfully common in Afghanistan. Roadside bombs are killing U.S. and coalition service members at a high rate, leading to many solemn plane-side tributes.
The events are reverential, dignified and almost majestic in their stark simplicity. But the Pentagon refuses to allow the news media to cover or photograph them, thus denying the American public a look at an enduring military ritual.
A Department of Defense regulation, "Release of Photos and Information Pertaining to War," cites privacy of the dead and their families. Invoking those regulations, military public affairs officers told two journalists to leave a ramp ceremony in Kandahar on Saturday night. Yet the night before, the same reporters were invited by Marines to join service members lined up to salute the dead at the Bastion base.
The Pentagon policy is part of what critics allege is an effort to censor the most searing images of war, sanitizing the suffering and death after nearly seven years of a grinding insurgency in Afghanistan. A similar 1991 regulation prohibits photographs of flag-draped caskets of war dead, particularly at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where remains are taken to a military morgue for transport home.
In 2004, Tami Silicio, an Everett woman working in Kuwait on cargo aircraft that flew fallen soldiers to Dover, took photographs of caskets that were published by The Seattle Times, drawing attention to the Pentagon policy and resulting in Silicio's firing.
The Pentagon tends to prefer upbeat and noncontroversial images. Public-affairs officers regularly encourage reporters and photographers to cover battlefield promotion and re-enlistment ceremonies, and the handing out of soccer balls to Afghan or Iraqi children.
Though ramp ceremonies are shrouded from the public eye, they embody the ritual honors and minimalist pageantry so beloved by the military. Fallen soldiers are anonymous, their flag-draped caskets unmarked and representing all America's war dead.
For reporters hitching rides on military aircraft in Afghanistan, the ceremonies are an unavoidable feature of airfield landscapes. In addition to the Marine and the Afghan interpreter, four U.S. troops and a Polish soldier were killed on Friday and Saturday alone. The ramp ceremony at Bastion, in Helmand province, was the second there in two days, after the deaths of two Navy corpsmen in an insurgent attack.
The Pentagon ban on coverage is haphazardly enforced and poorly understood, even by many public-affairs officers.
On Saturday, one such officer escorted Los Angeles Times journalists to cover and photograph the ramp ceremony in Kandahar for five U.S. troops. On the way, she announced that no photographs could be taken of the flag-draped coffins. Then, after conferring with another public-affairs officer who had just read the regulations, she said no journalists would be allowed at all.
The reporters watched the ceremony from behind a security fence. Later, the officer apologized and said the journalists should have been allowed to attend, as long as they agreed to not write about the ceremony or take photographs.
The ceremonies are emotional, all the more so as casualty rates have soared amid a Taliban resurgence in southern Afghanistan. At least 55 U.S. service members have died in Afghanistan this year, according to icasualties.org, an independent Web site that tracks casualties in the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts. At the current pace, U.S. deaths in Afghanistan in 2008 will approach last year's total of 117, by far the deadliest year since the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.
In May, for the first time, the number of U.S. dead in Afghanistan exceeded the monthly total in Iraq. The Marine killed Friday with his interpreter had been dead only a few hours when his remains, sealed in a dark-green body bag, were carried by colleagues past columns of saluting soldiers and Marines near the rear ramp of a C-130 cargo plane.
A U.S. flag was strapped to the Marine's body bag. Other Marines carried the remains of the interpreter, in a similar body bag with no flag. His corpse received no salute.
There were no remarks, no spoken prayers — just the sharp cadences of a Marine calling out commands: "Atten-shun" and "pree-sent arms." The remains were carried past the columns, slowly, as if to maximize the tribute. Those in formation saluted.
The crew chiefs from the plane strapped the body bags to the deck with the same type of straps that hold down cargo pallets. The remains lay beneath a U.S. flag the crew had hung inside the aircraft. Then the big plane was aloft, bound for Kandahar and, for the Marine, the trip home to the U.S. via Germany. In flight, the crew chiefs stepped gingerly around the body bags, keeping a respectful distance.
A few feet away sat four Marines who had been part of the ramp formation. With them was an Afghan interpreter who had also paid his respects along the ramp. They sat in silence, heads bowed, for the entire 35-minute flight.
In Kandahar the next evening, more than 1,000 service members from several countries were on the flight line for a far larger ceremony honoring the Marine killed Friday and four U.S. soldiers killed Saturday. There were U.S. soldiers, Marines and airmen, and troops from Britain, Canada and Lithuania.
Two Humvees and a cargo truck brought the five sets of remains in metal caskets, each one draped in a U.S. flag. The men and women in the columns saluted and held those salutes for many long minutes.
A chaplain said a prayer and spoke of each fallen man.
Eight-man details carried the caskets down the long, empty stretch of runway left open by the formations.
A piper sounded. The high notes of the bagpipes floated across the tarmac. When the piper played the Marine Corps hymn — not once, but several times — some of the Marines fought back tears.
Then came the low, plaintive notes of taps that cut through the thin evening air. Soon the details had loaded the caskets into the plane's belly. The big metal ramp rose up and slammed shut on the five caskets all in a row.
Information from Seattle Times archives is included in this report.
Ellie
By David Zucchino and Rick Loomis
Los Angeles Times
FORWARD OPERATING BASE BASTION, Afghanistan — The word went out across the flight line: "Ramp ceremony!"
Two "angels," the remains of a U.S. Marine and his Afghan interpreter, were about to be loaded onto a cargo plane Friday night. Four dozen soldiers and Marines quickly lined the runway to pay a final, poignant tribute to the dead.
Ramp ceremonies have become painfully common in Afghanistan. Roadside bombs are killing U.S. and coalition service members at a high rate, leading to many solemn plane-side tributes.
The events are reverential, dignified and almost majestic in their stark simplicity. But the Pentagon refuses to allow the news media to cover or photograph them, thus denying the American public a look at an enduring military ritual.
A Department of Defense regulation, "Release of Photos and Information Pertaining to War," cites privacy of the dead and their families. Invoking those regulations, military public affairs officers told two journalists to leave a ramp ceremony in Kandahar on Saturday night. Yet the night before, the same reporters were invited by Marines to join service members lined up to salute the dead at the Bastion base.
The Pentagon policy is part of what critics allege is an effort to censor the most searing images of war, sanitizing the suffering and death after nearly seven years of a grinding insurgency in Afghanistan. A similar 1991 regulation prohibits photographs of flag-draped caskets of war dead, particularly at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where remains are taken to a military morgue for transport home.
In 2004, Tami Silicio, an Everett woman working in Kuwait on cargo aircraft that flew fallen soldiers to Dover, took photographs of caskets that were published by The Seattle Times, drawing attention to the Pentagon policy and resulting in Silicio's firing.
The Pentagon tends to prefer upbeat and noncontroversial images. Public-affairs officers regularly encourage reporters and photographers to cover battlefield promotion and re-enlistment ceremonies, and the handing out of soccer balls to Afghan or Iraqi children.
Though ramp ceremonies are shrouded from the public eye, they embody the ritual honors and minimalist pageantry so beloved by the military. Fallen soldiers are anonymous, their flag-draped caskets unmarked and representing all America's war dead.
For reporters hitching rides on military aircraft in Afghanistan, the ceremonies are an unavoidable feature of airfield landscapes. In addition to the Marine and the Afghan interpreter, four U.S. troops and a Polish soldier were killed on Friday and Saturday alone. The ramp ceremony at Bastion, in Helmand province, was the second there in two days, after the deaths of two Navy corpsmen in an insurgent attack.
The Pentagon ban on coverage is haphazardly enforced and poorly understood, even by many public-affairs officers.
On Saturday, one such officer escorted Los Angeles Times journalists to cover and photograph the ramp ceremony in Kandahar for five U.S. troops. On the way, she announced that no photographs could be taken of the flag-draped coffins. Then, after conferring with another public-affairs officer who had just read the regulations, she said no journalists would be allowed at all.
The reporters watched the ceremony from behind a security fence. Later, the officer apologized and said the journalists should have been allowed to attend, as long as they agreed to not write about the ceremony or take photographs.
The ceremonies are emotional, all the more so as casualty rates have soared amid a Taliban resurgence in southern Afghanistan. At least 55 U.S. service members have died in Afghanistan this year, according to icasualties.org, an independent Web site that tracks casualties in the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts. At the current pace, U.S. deaths in Afghanistan in 2008 will approach last year's total of 117, by far the deadliest year since the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.
In May, for the first time, the number of U.S. dead in Afghanistan exceeded the monthly total in Iraq. The Marine killed Friday with his interpreter had been dead only a few hours when his remains, sealed in a dark-green body bag, were carried by colleagues past columns of saluting soldiers and Marines near the rear ramp of a C-130 cargo plane.
A U.S. flag was strapped to the Marine's body bag. Other Marines carried the remains of the interpreter, in a similar body bag with no flag. His corpse received no salute.
There were no remarks, no spoken prayers — just the sharp cadences of a Marine calling out commands: "Atten-shun" and "pree-sent arms." The remains were carried past the columns, slowly, as if to maximize the tribute. Those in formation saluted.
The crew chiefs from the plane strapped the body bags to the deck with the same type of straps that hold down cargo pallets. The remains lay beneath a U.S. flag the crew had hung inside the aircraft. Then the big plane was aloft, bound for Kandahar and, for the Marine, the trip home to the U.S. via Germany. In flight, the crew chiefs stepped gingerly around the body bags, keeping a respectful distance.
A few feet away sat four Marines who had been part of the ramp formation. With them was an Afghan interpreter who had also paid his respects along the ramp. They sat in silence, heads bowed, for the entire 35-minute flight.
In Kandahar the next evening, more than 1,000 service members from several countries were on the flight line for a far larger ceremony honoring the Marine killed Friday and four U.S. soldiers killed Saturday. There were U.S. soldiers, Marines and airmen, and troops from Britain, Canada and Lithuania.
Two Humvees and a cargo truck brought the five sets of remains in metal caskets, each one draped in a U.S. flag. The men and women in the columns saluted and held those salutes for many long minutes.
A chaplain said a prayer and spoke of each fallen man.
Eight-man details carried the caskets down the long, empty stretch of runway left open by the formations.
A piper sounded. The high notes of the bagpipes floated across the tarmac. When the piper played the Marine Corps hymn — not once, but several times — some of the Marines fought back tears.
Then came the low, plaintive notes of taps that cut through the thin evening air. Soon the details had loaded the caskets into the plane's belly. The big metal ramp rose up and slammed shut on the five caskets all in a row.
Information from Seattle Times archives is included in this report.
Ellie