[Sunshine Sister]

If this is true, I am OUTRAGED! Who gives a flyin' fish fart if these remains are identified. Dean didn't serve. Why should these remains even go to Hawaii and be tested at taxpayer expense. If Dean wants this done, fine. He can pay for it!

[vbmoneyspender]

I read somewhere that Dean's brother was with the CIA or another defense related agency and was working for our armed forces when he was executed. I could be wrong about this, but it would explain the military honors.

[anoldafvet]

I'm with you. Sounds like another RAT plan to denigrate the military. Take a special ceremony applicable only to military, apply it to non-military, and somehow it's not so special anymore. This smells as bad as the RAT contributor who got himself buried in Arlington.

[pepsionice]

Number one...someone in the government (hint: the Bush Adminstration itself)...pushed the priority of recovery (the team wouldn't have done it). If this is true...then someone in the adminstration needs to be fired.

Number two...whoever agreed to military honors...again...was a member of the current adminstration (hint: the Bush staff). This individual needs to be fired as well.

This immature effort to paint the dead Dean and the Democratic Dean in a bad light...is really in poor judgement and ranks with the Hillery adminstration. I'm not going to say GW himself did this...but one of the members of his staff is acting awful stupid.

[Lion Den Dan]

Who gives a flyin' fish fart

========================

Wonderful turn of phrase. Thank you for expanding my vocabulary if I may use your verbage.

Really, who does give about dinky Dean

[Criminal Number 18F]

Why should these remains even go to Hawaii and be tested at taxpayer expense?

To make sure they are Dean's hippie brother, and not a veteran.

Early on, the Viets often tried lying to JPRC. Later, most locals are trying to tell the truth but it was a long time ago and things have become matters of legend and myth. So the errors now are errors made in good faith, mostly, but no less erroneous. So every set of remains turned in, every grave and crash site excavated, must be double and triple checked.

Thanks to developments in DNA research, CILHI doesn't get these things wrong like it used to in the eighties (which did incredible damage to the credibility of the program as a whole).

Most people don't know it, but hundreds and hundreds of remains, not just from the Vietnam War but from WWII, other wars, peacetime plane crashes, etc., have been returned to families. Especially in the last ten years. Not just in Asia but, for instance, a couple years ago they found a Carpetbagger A-26 in a swamp in France and we able to return the remains of the crew, and the secret agent they were delivering when they crashed, to the families.

The people of JCRC/JPRC/JCAC (same basic org, names have changed now and then) are mostly active duty soldiers (and other servicemen) themselves... they are very sensitive to the honour and the tragedy inherent in the job... no doubt someone is being tuned up right now for leaking this to the media.

It also means a lot to those now serving to know, that if you are slain and your body is not recovered, your mates will continue trying. It's part of keeping faith, something we as conservatives should understand innately.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F