The Daily Background

Well this is certainly sobering. Because of a dramatic increase in US casualties in Iraq, Fort Lewis in Washington is not going to hold memorial ceremonies for individual soldiers who die in combat. Here’s what they’re doing instead, to be more “efficient”:

Instead, the post will hold one ceremony for all soldiers killed each month, the Fort Lewis acting commanding general, Brig. Gen. William Troy, wrote in a memo to commanders and staff last week.

“As much as we would like to think otherwise, I am afraid that with the number of soldiers we now have in harm’s way, our losses will preclude us from continuing to do individual memorial ceremonies,” Troy wrote in the memo, according to a copy obtained by United for Peace Pierce County and posted on the group’s Web site. A post spokesman confirmed the policy change Tuesday. It will start in June.

This type of thing, done in the name of efficiency, really serves only to cheapen the cost of human life. Mass ceremonies are like mass burials. In fact, it reminds me of this report from 2004:

A new wave of criticism is set to hit US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after he admitted did not personally sign Pentagon condolence letters to families of soldiers killed in Iraq and that a signature stamping device had been used instead.
[…]
An outcry ensued after the Stars and Stripes reported in late November that the Pentagon was using a signature device to stamp Rumsfeld’s signature on the letters, and quoted recipients who said they were insulted.

Several top Republicans, including senator and former presidential candidate John McCain, have recently criticized Rumsfeld, whom Bush has asked to stay on amid a cabinet re-shuffle in the wake of the November elections.

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