AP: Killer's Ashes Ordered Out of (Arlington Natl.) Cemetery

[Eugene]

Killer's Ashes Ordered Out of Cemetery

The Associated Press
Tuesday, December 26, 2006; 8:20 PM

HAGERSTOWN, Md. -- The cremated remains of a convicted murderer must be
removed from Arlington National Cemetery under a new federal law.

The provision ordering the removal of Russell Wayne Wagner's remains was included
in a veterans' health care and benefits bill that President Bush signed into law
on Friday.

Wagner, a Vietnam veteran, was convicted in 2002 of stabbing to death Daniel Davis,
84, and Wilda Davis, 80, in their home in 1994. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Wagner died in 2005 of a heroin overdose in prison at age 52. Because he was honorably
discharged from the Army in 1969, he qualified for interment at Arlington. His remains
were placed there July 27, 2005, at the request of his sister.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/26/AR2006122600771.html

[Sagan]

1. Wow.. that's like just the exact opposite thing of what Jesus would do...

We're making such progress as a people, aren't we?

[brentspeak]

20. Why would Jesus want a murderer's ashes to remain at Arlington?

[superconnected]

25. It's a forgiveness thing.

Per Christian lore, Christ was crucified along with a thief and a murderer. Both of whom he forgave.

[sweetheart]

2. I wonder if they had to pass curtis le may's gravestone...

.. on the way out of arlington.... point of extreme magnetic irony,
just in case their compasses are a bit mistuned on 'killer'

[Nevernose]

6. I think Le May gets a bad rap

He was a soldier, trying to win wars. Wars are won by whichever side is the most ruthless. (The irony isn't lost on me, though)

Henry V, 4.3:
How yet resolves the governor of the town?
This is the latest parle we will admit;
Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves;
Or like to men proud of destruction
Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier,
A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
If I begin the battery once again,
I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
Till in her ashes she lie buried.
The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range
With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants.
What is it then to me, if impious war,
Array'd in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats
Enlink'd to waste and desolation?
What is't to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
Of hot and forcing violation?
What rein can hold licentious wickedness
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil
As send precepts to the leviathan
To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town and of your people,
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil and villany.
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls,
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid,
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?

[sweetheart]

14. elevating the man who used an atom bomb in anger

You can't say what message was sent out by elevating the man who commanded the dropping
of the atom bombs, for the firebombing of japan. By lifting him up to command SAC, it sent
terrorist signals around the world, a wave of reasonable fear perhaps could have been avoided
by elevating a less divisive character.

Here's the official story as they tell it, but the atmosphere of history must reflect on
how his elevation is behind perhaps decades of nuclear fear across the world... and for that
he, teller, and the load of them who elevated nuclear war as a possibility, they might be
in future called the war criminals of the 20th along with the others... 'good' war criminals,
'our' war criminals, and therefore forgiven and absolved.

http://www.strategic-air-command.com/people/LeMay-General-Curtis.htm

Imagine if Russia had used an atomic weapon in anger on berlin, and then
another on frankfurt, and then elevated the general who did that to head of their
strategic arms command, would you be afraid of that society? What if they elevated
another general who had not the track record? Would that be interpreted differently.

Operation home run involved flying bomber wings over russia to scare them. Who started
and maintained the cold war?
http://www.55srwa.org/memory_lane/06-09111553mln.html

we did. Russia was only a threat as much as we scared the bejeszus out of them.
Sadly curtis le may was an actor in it all, but a willing one.

[Nevernose]

28. LeMay didn't start the cold war

It had already been started before he ever enlisted in the Army. Read "Animal Farm" for the quick version. Between the British and the Germans and the United States, they never trusted us again. Throw Stalin into the mix, and you end up with the Soviet Union as we know it, not the Soviet Union as Lenin dreamed it. http://www.naval-history.net/WW1CampaignsRussianRev.htm

It's not black and white. And yes, there is a difference between "our" war criminals and "their" war criminals. Not only do victors write the history, but they started the war. We didn't ask for it. Brutality is what happens in war. IMO, the only morality attributable is in who caused the war, not in what was done. But I speak from a cynical, pragmatic paradigm.

[Javaman]

18. LeMay said it himself...

After the fire bombing of Tokyo, he said, "If we lose, we will be tried as war criminals".

So therefore by that logic and your statement, all the crimes he committed are just fine and dandy because we won, right?

[Nevernose]

27. Maybe not exactly "fine and dandy"

But the rules of war are different. War is a bloodthirsty business, and whomever is the most bloodthirsty wins. If the war is justified, as it was in World War Two, then maybe the ends DO justify the means. With only the rare exception, wars are won by brutalizing the enemy's civilian populace, breaking their will to fight. That doesn't make it right, of course, just necessary.

As far as that specific quote is concerned (have you seen "Fog of War" yet? Excellent.), I interpret it more as an expression of confused guilt. On some levels, it was indeed a war crime, but on others, it was a necessary evil. Life just isn't black and white, right or wrong, and neither was LeMay.

[Javaman]

30. Regardless of the "rules" of war, the fire bombings of both

Tokyo and Hamburg are right up there with the atrocities the hitler committed. In both cases over 100,000 people were killed in each respective city. Mostly civilians. All in an effort to halt war production. Neither case achieved it's goal. It's been a long proven fact that carpet bombing the industrial facilities in both countries during the war did very little to halt their production.
In both cases, one of the other main goals was to try to cause the population to rebel against their governments. Didn't happen and in fact proved to do just the opposite.

I'm not even going to comment on the bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[bumblebee1]

12. If I'm not mistaken,

I thing Curtis LeMay's body is interred on the grounds of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

[Fridays Child]

3. Did he or did he not earn a place at Arlington?

Did he or did he not earn a place at Arlington? I fail to see what Russell Wayne Wagner's actions, decades later, criminal or otherwise, have to do with it. I have every sympathy for the loved ones of the two he murdered, nor should Wagner be forgiven for his heinous acts. But where or how he's buried will not change a thing. And isn't it also possible that this man's crimes were fueled, in some part, by the trauma he endured in Vietnam?

I don't know whose idea it was to attach this sorry matter to a VA benefits bill but, for Bush to agree to it, re-affirms my belief that he's not only ignorant but vindictive, as well.

[Liberal Veteran]

5. Nicely put.

You sum up all the same things that this article brought to my mind. It just seems like an empty gesture to stalk a man's ashes.

[Liberal Veteran]

4. I don't really agree with this law.

Yeah, the guy was a murderer. But he was also a Vietnam War veteran who was honorably discharged. Who is to say what kind of effects that war had on him?

And I don't really care for the idea of victim's families having ANY say in where a person is buried.

[Monkeyman]

7. Not on a Military Grave Site they shouldn't

[JohnnyLib2]

8. Head up ass-ism

shows up in D.C. again. Gotta check my countdown-to-inauguration calendar.

[lynne]

9. Lee Harvey Oswald earned the right to be buried at Arlington -

- as did Tim McVeigh but I doubt that many would want to see either interred there. You lose your freedom, your vote and sometimes your life when convicted of murder. Losing the option to be buried in a cemetery funded and maintained by Federal tax dollars isn't surprising nor is it a significant loss as compared to the others, IMO.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

10. His service to his country probably played a role in screwing up his mind,

his body should remain where it is.

If they disinter this man, they need to run background checks on all who are buried in Arlington. Who knows how many murderers, thieves, and child abusers are buried there?

[Dinger]

16. Exactly (nt)

[brentspeak]

19. How do we know you're not a "murderer, thief, and child abuser"?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

22. Exactly.

You don't know what sort of atrocities were committed by the vet who seemed like the nicest person. War can drive people do terrible things long after the war has ended.

To deny this vet a place in Arlington requires that background checks be performed on every vet who rests there.

[w4rma]

11. Another screwed up GOP law. (nt)

[lynne]

17. Legislation was drafted by Democrat Barbara Mikulski of MD -

- according to info on Arlington Cemetery website -

Bill would bar convicted murders
22 September 2005

"A bill introduced Thursday in the U.S. Senate would bar veterans convicted of capital murder from burial in national cemeteries, closing what lawmakers said was a loophole that allowed the interment of a killer earlier this year at Arlington National Cemetery.

The legislation, drafted by Senator Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland, would exclude veterans from national cemeteries if they are convicted in state court of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison. A previous law applied only to those who were given life without the possibility of parole."

[saigon68]

21. What a waste of time

Who gives a rat ass

They are all dead

[Crayson]

13. Anybody know more about his life story?

What led to the events?
What happened when he returned.
Why did he grow so desperate he felt he had to stab an elderly couple?

I don't mean to excuse him... but he certainly has an interesting life story.

[jarab]

15. Here's an associated link.

The BTK killer technically qualifies, too.

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/rwwagner.htm

[saigon68]

29. I guess they will screen corpses for Criminal records now

To prove they are worthy to be buried

16 December 2006:

The $3.2 billion veterans bill approved Friday by Congress includes a provision ordering the removal of a convicted double murderer’s remains from Arlington National Cemetery.

News of the bill’s passage was welcomed by Vernon Davis, whose elderly parents, Daniel and Wilda Davis, were fatally stabbed by Russell Wayne Wagner at their Hagerstown home on Valentine’s Day 1994. Davis fought for 16 months to have Wagner’s remains removed from the military cemetery.

[damntexdem]

23. But will the ashes comply?

Will Hoaxland Security have to develop a new ashes-screening program to keep killer ashes out of our national cemetaries?

[NorthernSpy]

24. sorry, America: he's still your boy...

That law was put in place to keep McVeigh out of Arlington. I thought it was a bad law then, and I think it's a bad law now.

The Soviets also used to rewrite history in exactly this fashion -- burying people with honors and digging them up again later as ideological propriety demanded. For a time, they had a nice little game of musical chairs going with the Kremlin's bit of graves-space.

The bottom line is this: we sent Wagner -- like McVeigh himself -- to war when he was a very, very young man. He did what we demanded of him. Afterward, he was a profoundly disturbed, violent, murderous man. So yeah, I can see how we'd like to pretend that his service to us never happened; it's just so much tidier that way. It leaves fewer things to explain to Arlington's visitors. We're omitting only a small portion of truth.



It's still lying.

[superconnected]

26. I wonder how many of the soldiers there killed people

sorry, wearing a uniform doesn't exonerate someone from murder, imo.