Air Force accidentally sent the ashes of 274 soldiers to a dump site

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/08/9290603-report-air-force-dumped-remains-of-274-troops-in-landfill

Yes, you heard correctly: the Airforce somehow or another managed to screw up their records and sent the ashes of 274 fallen soldiers to a garbage dump in Virginia. And it doesn't look like they'll be able to do anything to recover them.

Usually I'd be pretty upset, but for some reason I have a hard time believing this actually happened. I mean, this is the freaking US military we're talking about, who put such high value in the ceremonies for the dead, and typically go beserk over the slightest infringement of their traditions (ex dropping a flag on the ground by accident). There's gotta be something else to this story, because how can you even possibly mix up a guy's remains with the trash!?

um.......Clerical error?

...Huh.

Doesn't seem to be a clerical error, just callousness.

If this is the story that I've been thinking of, the parts that were sent to a dump site were all unidentified. They were pieces and bits that had no discernable owner.

I must say, this entire thing is absolutely unbelievable, and I hope a good round of firings come about for such stupidity.

Traditionally, unidentified and mixed up remains go in a mass grave, not in a garbage dump. Surely they could've digged a miscellaneous bits collective grave at Arlington instead of... y'know, desecrating the dead?

edited 8th Dec '11 5:53:19 PM by SavageHeathen

The guy responsible for this idiocy is gonna be so fired, he will be usable as a pot.