Yrys
Army.ca Veteran
- Reaction score
- 11
- Points
- 430
Fallen Soldiers, Coming Home in Public
In an HBO movie that has its premiere on Saturday, Kevin Bacon, playing the part of
Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, escorts the body of Chance Phelps, 19, a fellow Marine killed
in Iraq, home to his parents in Wyoming. There’s no real plot; the linear narrative
follows Colonel Strobl through his solemn rituals, often including a slow ceremonial
salute, as he watches over Private Phelps (later Lance Corporal Phelps). The body is
moved in a shipping container through various airports, from cargo hold to cargo hold,
on its long last journey.
HBO promotes the movie, “Taking Chance,” based on Colonel Strobl’s true account,
as “nonpolitical.” But it arrives in a highly political context and at an acutely political
moment.
Just last week, President Obama was asked at a news conference if he would allow
coverage of the flag-draped coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware
“so the American people can see the full human cost of war.” Photographs of that
particularly poignant moment — when a military transport plane first touches down
on American soil — have been banned since 1991.
Mr. Obama surprised many when he replied that he was “in the process of reviewing
those policies.” But he did not tip his hand. “I don’t want to give you an answer now
before I’ve evaluated that review and understand all the implications involved,” he
said. The implications are more far-reaching than might appear, even for a president
who campaigned against the war and promised transparency.
The military has explained the ban by saying that it spares a soldier’s loved ones the
hardship and expense of going to Dover to be there to greet the arrival along with
the news media. Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Friday that
families might think “if the press is going to be there, well, by golly, I should be there
to see my son or daughter, husband, wife, mother, father come home.” Usually, families
wait for their loved one to be escorted all the way home by someone like Colonel Strobl.
Privacy is an issue too, he said. Although the coffins are not publicly identified at Dover,
fewer deaths in Iraq mean that the identity of each is more knowable.
But skeptics say that those stated reasons mask a harsher reality and that the policy is
an attempt to sanitize the war and manipulate public opinion. “This is part of an overall
strategy to control the media in terms of what we know about the war and how it’s going,”
said Brian Gran, who teaches sociology and law at Case Western Reserve University and
has studied the so-called “Dover Test,” an intangible measure of how many coffins
Americans can stomach seeing.
The ban on photography has been applied inconsistently over the years, he pointed out,
suggesting to him that “the government is less concerned about the families’ interests
and more concerned about controlling the perceptions of war.”
Part of the debate that has developed turns on whether the return of soldiers is a private
or public matter. While families have registered a range of opinions about allowing the
news media at Dover, many have maintained that the return of a body is so deeply personal
that they should be able to decide whether to keep it private.
Critics say a soldier’s joining the military is a public act, done on behalf of country, and that
his or her return is of public interest. Banning photographs at Dover, Mr. Gran said,
“represents an important instance of the government attempting to justify its objectives.”
But with the review prompted by Mr. Obama, the Pentagon appears to be seeking greater
balance between private and public interests. Mr. Morrell said that Defense Secretary Robert
Gates wanted to allow families to keep their privacy “while at the same time trying to bring
this process more into the open, so that the American people can see what goes on and honor
these heroes as well.”
There are also political considerations. Mr. Obama has been careful not to ruffle feathers in the
military, moving cautiously on two big campaign promises — withdrawing combat troops from
Iraq within 16 months and allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly. It would be out of
character for him suddenly to change a controversial policy like the photo ban without building
up support for it within the military.
Moreover, no one knows what will happen in Iraq or Afghanistan, or on some other battlefield.
At some point, Mr. Obama himself will be held accountable for the coffins coming home, and he
may find that it is not in his interest, any more than it was in his predecessors’, for Americans to
have these visual reminders of the death toll. It was, after all, the embarrassment of a president
that first led to the photo ban. In 1989, the TV networks showed a split screen of President George
H. W. Bush in jocular banter with reporters on one side while on the other, the first American
casualties from Panama were returning to Dover. A veteran himself, Mr. Bush was deeply
embarrassed at the juxtaposition and asked the networks to warn the White House when they
intended to use split screens again. They declined. At the next opportunity, in February 1991,
during the first gulf war, the Pentagon banned photos of returning coffins.
It isn’t clear how much such photos sway public opinion; more than 4,000 coffins have come back
from Iraq, largely unphotographed, and public opinion still turned against the war. Of course with
photos, that opinion may have turned earlier, particularly in the beginning of the war when
Mr. Bush was up for re-election.
“If the American people believe a war is worth fighting, then pictures of returning casualties won’t
change anything,” said Ralph Begleiter, a journalism professor at the University of Delaware who
prompted the Pentagon to release hundreds of pictures of coffins returning from Iraq. “The problem
comes when there are doubts about the war itself.”
In the near term, Mr. Obama could be sending as many as 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan;
some may well come back through Dover.
In an HBO movie that has its premiere on Saturday, Kevin Bacon, playing the part of
Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, escorts the body of Chance Phelps, 19, a fellow Marine killed
in Iraq, home to his parents in Wyoming. There’s no real plot; the linear narrative
follows Colonel Strobl through his solemn rituals, often including a slow ceremonial
salute, as he watches over Private Phelps (later Lance Corporal Phelps). The body is
moved in a shipping container through various airports, from cargo hold to cargo hold,
on its long last journey.
HBO promotes the movie, “Taking Chance,” based on Colonel Strobl’s true account,
as “nonpolitical.” But it arrives in a highly political context and at an acutely political
moment.
Just last week, President Obama was asked at a news conference if he would allow
coverage of the flag-draped coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware
“so the American people can see the full human cost of war.” Photographs of that
particularly poignant moment — when a military transport plane first touches down
on American soil — have been banned since 1991.
Mr. Obama surprised many when he replied that he was “in the process of reviewing
those policies.” But he did not tip his hand. “I don’t want to give you an answer now
before I’ve evaluated that review and understand all the implications involved,” he
said. The implications are more far-reaching than might appear, even for a president
who campaigned against the war and promised transparency.
The military has explained the ban by saying that it spares a soldier’s loved ones the
hardship and expense of going to Dover to be there to greet the arrival along with
the news media. Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Friday that
families might think “if the press is going to be there, well, by golly, I should be there
to see my son or daughter, husband, wife, mother, father come home.” Usually, families
wait for their loved one to be escorted all the way home by someone like Colonel Strobl.
Privacy is an issue too, he said. Although the coffins are not publicly identified at Dover,
fewer deaths in Iraq mean that the identity of each is more knowable.
But skeptics say that those stated reasons mask a harsher reality and that the policy is
an attempt to sanitize the war and manipulate public opinion. “This is part of an overall
strategy to control the media in terms of what we know about the war and how it’s going,”
said Brian Gran, who teaches sociology and law at Case Western Reserve University and
has studied the so-called “Dover Test,” an intangible measure of how many coffins
Americans can stomach seeing.
The ban on photography has been applied inconsistently over the years, he pointed out,
suggesting to him that “the government is less concerned about the families’ interests
and more concerned about controlling the perceptions of war.”
Part of the debate that has developed turns on whether the return of soldiers is a private
or public matter. While families have registered a range of opinions about allowing the
news media at Dover, many have maintained that the return of a body is so deeply personal
that they should be able to decide whether to keep it private.
Critics say a soldier’s joining the military is a public act, done on behalf of country, and that
his or her return is of public interest. Banning photographs at Dover, Mr. Gran said,
“represents an important instance of the government attempting to justify its objectives.”
But with the review prompted by Mr. Obama, the Pentagon appears to be seeking greater
balance between private and public interests. Mr. Morrell said that Defense Secretary Robert
Gates wanted to allow families to keep their privacy “while at the same time trying to bring
this process more into the open, so that the American people can see what goes on and honor
these heroes as well.”
There are also political considerations. Mr. Obama has been careful not to ruffle feathers in the
military, moving cautiously on two big campaign promises — withdrawing combat troops from
Iraq within 16 months and allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly. It would be out of
character for him suddenly to change a controversial policy like the photo ban without building
up support for it within the military.
Moreover, no one knows what will happen in Iraq or Afghanistan, or on some other battlefield.
At some point, Mr. Obama himself will be held accountable for the coffins coming home, and he
may find that it is not in his interest, any more than it was in his predecessors’, for Americans to
have these visual reminders of the death toll. It was, after all, the embarrassment of a president
that first led to the photo ban. In 1989, the TV networks showed a split screen of President George
H. W. Bush in jocular banter with reporters on one side while on the other, the first American
casualties from Panama were returning to Dover. A veteran himself, Mr. Bush was deeply
embarrassed at the juxtaposition and asked the networks to warn the White House when they
intended to use split screens again. They declined. At the next opportunity, in February 1991,
during the first gulf war, the Pentagon banned photos of returning coffins.
It isn’t clear how much such photos sway public opinion; more than 4,000 coffins have come back
from Iraq, largely unphotographed, and public opinion still turned against the war. Of course with
photos, that opinion may have turned earlier, particularly in the beginning of the war when
Mr. Bush was up for re-election.
“If the American people believe a war is worth fighting, then pictures of returning casualties won’t
change anything,” said Ralph Begleiter, a journalism professor at the University of Delaware who
prompted the Pentagon to release hundreds of pictures of coffins returning from Iraq. “The problem
comes when there are doubts about the war itself.”
In the near term, Mr. Obama could be sending as many as 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan;
some may well come back through Dover.
