The Dover Port Mortuary Independent Review

This is a con­tin­u­um of a sto­ry that broke cou­ple months ago about how Dover Air Force Base has severe­ly mis­han­dled the funer­al process that lead to ser­vice mem­ber remains being deposit­ed into a land­fill.  Based on Army Gen­er­al (Retired) John Abizaid’s “The Dover Port Mor­tu­ary (DPM) Inde­pen­dent Review Sub­com­mit­tee”; it is now doc­u­ment­ed that the first doc­u­ment­ed inci­dent occurred Sep­tem­ber 2005.

Ref: The Dover Port Mor­tu­ary Inde­pen­dent Review Sub­com­mit­tee Report

Some of the oth­er inci­dents that are high­light­ed in the report that spans across the past eight years include:

• - Sep­tem­ber 11 vic­tims buried in the same land­fill as the ser­vice members.
• - Mis­han­dling of a Army Mas­ter Sergeant remains
• - Mis­han­dling of a Marine remains (result­ed in $25,000 settlement)
• - Ser­vice mem­bers being dis­posed as med­ical waste
• - Mis­han­dling of fetal remains of mil­i­tary spous­es miscarriages

If this has been doc­u­ment­ed for the past eight years, why has this not been han­dled eight years ago?  The com­man­ders should be dis­charged with a  dis­hon­or­able because as a tax­pay­er, I should not have to pay for indi­vid­u­als that could not do their job right.  As a mil­i­tary vet­er­an, I am deeply sad­dened that my broth­ers and sis­ters were han­dled this way.

Bot­tom line:  If you are going to do a job, do it right.

Update:

The NY Times has done a fol­low to The Dover Port Mor­tu­ary Inde­pen­dent Review Comit­tee and the Chief of the Air Force response.

Link: NY Times Report

The Air Force needs to fol­low Office of Spe­cial Coun­sel guid­ance of remov­ing the DPM offi­cials instead of giv­ing out LORs and demot­ing the civilians.