N.Y. Times (Sept. 8, 2008)

September 8, 2008

Editorial
Shrouded Homecomings

One measure of the Bush administration’s efforts to hide the human toll of the war in Iraq is a recent news photograph of commercial airline passengers peering down from their windows as a flag-draped coffin unexpectedly emerges from the cargo bay. Their faces register surprise and grave wariness at this encounter with war’s ultimate price.

The Pentagon has worked hard to make sure that such moments of truth are rare.

During the Vietnam War, photographs of the coffins of military casualties were routinely permitted when the dead arrived home. But a photo ban was imposed during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, and the Bush administration has aggressively extended it.

The result is that the return of more than 4,000 dead Americans from Iraq and Afghanistan has been treated as a virtual state secret. Rare photographs of arrival ceremonies have emerged only though lawsuits and drawn-out freedom-of-information struggles.

A worthy proposal that would lift the veil is drawing bipartisan support in the House. It would require the Pentagon to allow accredited journalists access to commemoration services and, most pointedly, the arrival ceremonies for flag-draped coffins coming home at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

The measure in no way interferes with the right of grieving families to bar news coverage of interments at national cemeteries. The sponsor, Representative Walter Jones, Republican of North Carolina, focuses instead on the graphic moment of homecoming and honor that has been foolishly denied the nation’s notice.

“I hope that anyone who sees a flag-draped coffin will remember this individual gave his or her life for this country and respect and revere that sacrifice,” he explained this month. Congress should approve his bill.

As the debate over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continues, the dead keep journeying home. Proper attention and reverence should be paid, in plain sight.