A Punchbowl Argument
It seems there is some rather high-level contention going on within DoD these days. (Yeah, I know – you’re thinking, “Tell us something we didn’t know.” Keep reading.)
Arguments between the Services and/or between a Service and a Joint Agency or Command are nothing new. But this one is a bit unique.
It seems as if the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) wants to exhume a rather large number of those buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (AKA the “Punchbowl”) as “Unknowns” – 330+ total – from the USS Oklahoma. They believe they may now be able to identify a fair number of these individuals. Further, some of the graves are thought or known to contain commingled remains – so exhuming only selected graves isn’t really feasible.
JPAC would also like to do the same for those buried as “Unknowns” from the USS California and the USS West Virginia at a future date.
Part of the reason JPAC wants to do this is because Congress has set mandates for annual numbers of identifications by JPAC, and this is likely the only way they can reach those mandates. Yet another part of the reason is, well, their mission. JPAC exists to recover and identify previously unaccounted for US casualties – and those buried as “Unknowns” are by definition still unaccounted for.
To me, this seems like the proverbial “no brainer”. New data and forensic techniques are available that may identify some of these lost. IMO, we should use them to do so.
However, JPAC is receiving opposition from what is to me a rather surprising source within DoD: the Navy. According to an excellent article from Stars and Stripes,
But the Hawaii-based military command, known as JPAC, is getting resistance from the Navy, which prefers to maintain the “sanctity” of the graves at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, officials said.
Further, the Navy would like to take the partial and commingled remains of more than 100 Oklahoma crew members who were disinterred in 2003 from a single casket at Punchbowl, possibly rebury them at a memorial and grave site to be created on Ford Island, and invite family members to an interment ceremony on Dec. 7, 2014.
To an extent, I can understand the former objection. But I cannot agree. IMO, the chance to identify some of the fallen should outweigh that consideration. Further, I’d be willing to give long odds that – could we but poll the fallen – they’d universally agree to the brief disturbance of their rest so that some of their fallen brothers-in-arms could be identified and receive a by-name, proper burial.
And the second objection? Frankly, that strikes me as little more than showboating and PR. In other words: pure bull.
But I might well be off base here. This is an issue on which I have a hard time being objective; I firmly believe that the fallen deserve a proper, by-name burial if at all possible. IMO, burial as an “Unknown” or a centotaph for an unrecovered body just isn’t the same.
Thoughts?
Category: Navy, No Longer Missing, Veterans Issues
im with ya 100%. i am a firm supporter of the idea of giving all our fallen brothers a proper burial. my reasoning, i think, is different than yours, my purpose is for the families. the dead care not where or if they are buried or in what manner, they are dead. the funerals, grave sites, and markers are for those who are left behind. we owe it to the families of our fallen to give them the opportunity to have a specific place to mourn and celebrate the great sacrifice made by their loved ones to our great country. we, as a country, owe that debt above anything else.
Smitty: our reasoning isn’t different at all, amigo. I just didn’t include that part of my reasoning in the article.
IMO, the spirits of the dead likely care little about how they’re buried, so long as they’re remembered. (I say likely as I’ve never been able to speak with one and ask. [smile]) But IMO, they damn well would care about the stress caused to their families and friends by the lack of a proper burial and the closure provided by same. They’d want that closure for their surviving family and friends.
IMO, we owe it to our fallen comrades to provide that closure for their families – immediately if at all possible, but eventually if and as we can.
I agree wholeheartedly
Agreed. If they’re identified, it would finally bring closure to the family and the ultimate sacrifice they paid could be recognized by name.
I think they deserve to be sorted out and given individual recognition.
Mass graves are not my idea of a proper burial unless there is no other choice.
I agree.
This is a case of technology. In years past the technology did not exist to identify partial remains. Now it does and should be utilized. It does not matter if its from a fallen warrior from today or 200 years ago. They all earned a properly marked grave.
The navy has more Unknown and uncovered remains than any other service. This is due to the number of ships lost over time and the number of of pilots lost.
I doubt that there is a ship board sailor anyplace in the world that has not thought about being lost at sea. So while the Navys attitude is understandable it is not acceptable in this case.
Gotta disagree. The people that cared about the unknowns knew which ships their husbands, fathers, brothers, uncles were on and they know they didn’t come home. After 70+ years, it’s not like they haven’t figured out what happened. What comes after the Punchbowl, the Arizona? What then, Arlington and the Tomb? Like that goofy PSA says, “let it go”.
The first thing I thought about was the tomb in Arlington. Is that next? Having said that, the government knows all the names, just not which goes to which. There is no reason the government can’t contact the families or at least get this story out so there is public support. I think J-Pac should be working on identifying the remains they have in inventory first. They are still identifying remains from Vietnam they have had for years. When they run out of recovered remains, then this idea of exhuming a whole cemetery to remain in business should be undertaken.
SINGLE CASKET? So they are concerned that disinterring and
disturbing a 6×3 section of the cemetary would destroy the santity of it all? While to some extent I agree with CC that the families know what happened, I can;t help but think of the myriads of “well, even though it has been X years we have always wondered and finally have closure” comments I have read from families in the past. We’re not talking digging up the whole place apparently (speaking from ignorance, have never set foot in Hawaii) so this sounds like a relatively minor inconvenience to set a lot of minds at rest.
Our responsibility as a military in this situation is sending our fallen brothers and sisters home. It doesn’t matter if it’s ten, fifty or two hundred years later. You still do your damndest to get them identified and give their families closure.
@ CC and Dana: Remember, they have been in the Tomb. At least the Vietnam Unknown’s tomb. And they were able to identify the remains using DNA. Of course, they had a pretty good idea whose remains they were when they interred them, but that’s a whole other story about JPAC. And the Vietnam Unknown’s tomb remains empty to this day. But Michael Blasse’s family knows what happened to him, thanks to the disinternment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Blassie
Um, CCSenior, Dana . . . that’s already happened.
The original Unknown from the Vietnam War was later identified and reburied elsewhere.
The original Vietnam Unknown was buried at Arlington in 1984. He was identified with reasonable certainty was fourteen years later. His remains were exhumed; mitochondrial DNA testing confirmed his identity. He was reburied with full military honors by his family near his hometown of Saint Louis, MO. He now rests in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.
His name was First Lieutenant Michael Joseph Blassie, US Air Force.
No doubt in my mind that the remains of our fallen should be returned home from wherever they are recovered internationally. No expense is too much for that endeavor.
However, I do not define “home” as the family cemetery. The remains of those fallen at Pearl Harbor are in a National Cemetery now and are cared for quite honorably, in some cases much better than they would be at “home,” wherever that might be.
Which distant relative gets to decide to where the remains/partial remains should be shipped? If one set of relatives does NOT want the remains disturbed, will they be disturbed because another set of relatives want them to be? I can only imagine how traumatic it would be to receive my father or grandfather’s shin bone for burial stateside while the rest of him is either in the cemetery or in the harbor.
Seems rather like creating more problems than the solution offers, in spite of today’s technology. Applying what we now know to remains discovered in jungles around the world is an entirely appropriate use of the technology. Moving remains or partial remains around the country just because we have new technology seems unnecessarily macabre.
No easy answer, that is for sure.
The only people’s opinion that really matters here are the families. DOD/Navy needs to poll the remaining family members for what THEY want, not what DOD/Navy wants. It is to the family we owe our gratitude for their loss, not the military. Make a cut line (51%, 75%, whatever) that says when we reach this percentage, whatever the majority wants, that’s what happens.
…You know, I almost wonder if the Oklahoma memorial isn’t somebody’s special project, and they’re afraid that if the remains are identified, that won’t leave anyone to bury there.
Mike
I will not wade into the argument because I see both sides and I do not have a qualified opinion.
But I will say, Punchbowl is a very beautiful and powerful place.
Who will benefit from this? Is the plan really for the descendents and relatives of the dead, is it for those currently serving in the armed forces, or is it for part of the DoD, so someone can get a Congressional pat on the back?
I ask because I have a great-uncle who never returned from the C-B-I, and if someone called and informed my mother and I that he’d been identified and is being shipped back to the ‘States, we’d be at a total loss what to do. We have no family plot, no one alive knew him. All his brothers and sisters were cremated, as were his parents, and the ashes scattered. The closest military cemetery is 300 miles away. I’m leaning toward leaving the bodies to stay where they are.
“BENEATH THIS STONE REPOSE THE BONES OF TWO THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN UNKNOWN SOLDIERS….”
So begins the inscription on the monument over the mass grave at Arlington National Cemetery.
It continues: “GATHERED AFTER THE WAR FROM THE FIELDS OF BULL RUN, AND THE ROUTE TO THE RAPPAHANOCK, THEIR REMAINS COULD NOT BE IDENTIFIED. BUT THEIR NAMES AND DEATHS ARE RECORDED IN THE ARCHIVES OF THEIR COUNTRY, AND ITS GRATEFUL CITIZENS. HONOR THEM AS OF THEIR NOBLE ARMY OF MARTYRS. MAY THEY REST IN PEACE.”
These men went to war and did not return. It became commonplace for soldiers of both sides to sew their names into their clothing in the hopes that they, should they be killed, would be known. I’m guessing that not much has changed between then and now, in that regard.