Joe Spector takes on this case of apparently ghastly disregard for our fallen soldiers:

Democrat & Chronicle: Local News

A woman says she saw a soldier’s flag-draped coffin put into a cart with passengers’ baggage last month at the Greater Rochester International Airport, shocking her and other onlookers.

“It looked awful, just awful,” Cynthia Hoag, 56, of Dansville, Livingston County, said Wednesday. “Maybe we made too much out of it, but it was very disturbing to us. If that had been my son, I would have been very upset.”

Officials dispute Hoag’s story, saying it is implausible. They did not disclose the name of the fallen soldier, but he appears to be Army Sgt. 1st Class Tony Knier of Sabinsville, Pa., who was killed in Iraq on Oct. 21.

Uncharacteristically, Joe doesn’t seem willing to parse the information much, here.  Allow me to point out the facts:

1. A soldier’s body was in fact transported through RIA
2. They know his name
3. A Pennsylvania funeral director picked up the body
4. Someone saw the body.  Forget whether she’s competent or not: she saw the body, otherwise she couldn’t have known about it and wouldn’t have said anything.
5. The airport director, David Damelio, states that he wasn’t even aware there *was* a body coming through RIA until this hit the fan.

Airport and government officials dispute that the policy would allow that (have the Bush Administration officials ever violated or changed policy before?), while one airport official disputes the mechanics of what she saw like it’s the Zapruder film.  But no one ~ no one ~  is offering an alternate sequence of events.  Airports are loaded with manifests and lists of every conceivable variety, can we not find out exactly what did happen?  Did she mistake a military plane for a commercial plane?  What, exactly, constitutes a “Military escort” in the Pentagon these days, and does one guy qualify?  Airport officials were unable to obtain a copy of any video tape of the event, and I think we can all say, everyone’s just flat disappointed about that.

At least, whatever other differences we might have with her, we can count on one Republican to speak up when the facts are obvious: Maggie Brooks.  Her word?  “Abhorent.”  Well, it doesn’t get much worse for a former journalist turned politician.

Whatever the circumstances, the body of a dead soldier was flown through RIA with absolutely no preparations made, no thought given to the sensibilities of other passengers, no regard for the dignity of the dead.  Mrs. Brooks is right on the money ~ regardless of the actual chain of events ~ to roundly criticize the Pentagon for it’s handling of this situation.

By the way, if the article is disheartening, the comments on it are fascinating.  Check them out.

Technorati Tags: RIA, Rochester International Airport, Iraq, Pentagon

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