Mother allows photos of California soldier's coffin to protest media ban

[CShine]

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The mother of a soldier killed in Iraq summoned news outlets to photograph her son's flag-draped casket arriving at Sacramento International Airport to protest a Pentagon policy banning media coverage of America's war dead. Nearly a dozen reporters, photographers and television crews watched as the coffin of Army Spc. Patrick McCaffrey, 34, was transferred to a hearse outside an airport cargo terminal shortly before midnight Sunday, officials said.

"I don't care what President Bush wants," his mother, Nadia McCaffrey, told the Los Angeles Times. Patrick "did not die for nothing ... The way he lived needs to be talked about. Patrick was not a fighter, he was a peacemaker."

Patrick McCaffrey was killed June 22 along with Lt. Andre Tyson, both members of the 579th Engineer Battalion, when the two were ambushed by insurgents near Balad, Iraq. The debate over whether Americans should see the coffins of McCaffrey and other troops flared last April after The Seattle Times published a front-page photograph of caskets in a cargo plane in Kuwait and a First Amendment activist posted on his Web site dozens of like images from Dover, Del., home to the nation's largest military mortuary. Sunday night's brief ceremony, however, did not violate the policy because it applies only to military facilities. The airport and the California National Guard worked Sunday to arrange the event.

The Pentagon's rules "are specifically for the airlift command, when the caskets are on the military plane," said Lt. Jonathan Shiroma, spokesman for the California National Guard. "This is a commercial jet, so it's a different jurisdiction, so to speak. We cannot stop the media from filming."

http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/9815043p-10737570c.html

[T Bone]

1. Notice how the deceased soldier's arrival was in the dead of the night?

I wonder if that is on purpose by this administration.
My condolences to the family.

[tom_paine]

3. Of course it was. The Busheviks are staged and PR-vetted

beyond anything I veer have seeen or imagined.

Much slicker than the ham-fisted Soviets and Nazis who's techniques Herr Rove has improved and twekaed for use in Amerika.

Actually, the Busheviks are more staged and PR-managaed than outside of sic-fi novels like "1984".

[readmylips]

2. If small man bush killed my son....

I would demand a funeral down Pennsylvania Ave, same as Reagan's. God Bless My Sailor Step Son. Apparently the fleet of carrirs on their way to the middle east, it's a blockaid bush is cooking up against Iran. It's all to help his election and degrading personal character. It has nothing to do with the USA. Hold on to your shots...the world will be even more dangerous for American citizens and the world. WW3 is coming.

[Tellurian]

4. She's my kind of Mother..."I don't CARE what President Bush wants!"

Now, lets see Bush arrest Army Spc. McCaffery's mother for disobedience!

[KurtNYC]

5. Tony Nave

Good for her - no sacrifice should be forgotten or hidden. Personally the most haunting anti-war photo of the war is this one:

http://www.mppa.org/mppa/Clips/april2003/NewsClip2.html

Takes me right back to a funeral in 1969 when my friend's adoptive father was killed in Nam. Too many of my classmates grew up without fathers... It is a shame we couldn't stop this snipe hunt.

[TahitiNut]

6. Duplicate

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=651230