Another Soldier; Please Remember Him

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post attended the funeral of a senior officer of the United States military the other day. He did so at the family's request.  But he had to do so at a distance, because although the family of Lt. Col. Billy Hall had requested the presence of the press at his funeral at Arlington Cemetery, the government that ordered Lt. Col. Hall into war refused his family’s last request, and kept the press away.

Source ~ Washington Post

This is wrong.

As moneysmith wrote so beautifully earlier this month, Lt. Col. Hall worried about his family and used every opportunity he had to set their minds and hearts at ease.  

Shortly before he was killed he wrote:

"I know most of what you hear on the news about Iraq is not usually good news and that so many are dying over here," Maj. Hall wrote in a March 27 e-mail to his family, two days before he was fatally wounded. "That is true to an extent but it does not paint the total picture and violence is not everywhere throughout the country. So please don't associate what you see on the news with all of Iraq."

(snip)

He ended his e-mail with:

"Love you and miss you. I'll write again soon."

Source ~ Washington Post

Sadly, he was never able to write again.

On Wednesday:

his family walked slowly behind the horse-drawn caisson to section 60. In the front row of mourners, one young girl trudged along, clinging to a grown-up's hand; another child found a ride on an adult's shoulders.

It was a moving scene -- and one the Pentagon shouldn't try to hide from the American public.

Source ~ Washington Post

But the Pentagon did.

Journalists were held 50 yards from the service, separated from the mourning party by six or seven rows of graves, and staring into the sun and penned in by a yellow rope. Photographers and reporters pleaded with Arlington officials.

(snip)

The distance made it impossible to hear the words of Chaplain Ron Nordan, who, an official news release said, was leading the service. Even a reporter who stood surreptitiously just behind the mourners could make out only the familiar strains of the Lord's Prayer. Whatever Chaplain Nordan had to say about Hall's valor and sacrifice were lost to the drone of airplanes leaving National Airport.

Source ~ Washington Post

Which, of course, is just as the current Administration wishes it to be.  

The sounds of mourning drowned out by the sounds of planes taking off; our dead young men and women, forgotten in the vapor of departing aircraft.  Lost in the overhead noise of commerce.

Bless the memories of those who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.  May we never, ever forget them.