Air Force mortuary dumped airmen’s remains in landfill
WHAT HEELS: From 2003- 2008, it was standard practice for the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in DE to cremate the remains of fallen troops who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and then dispose of the ashes as though they were medical waste, dumping them in a VA landfill, The Washington Post reports:
Air Force officials … said the procedure was limited to fragments or portions of body parts that were unable to be identified at first or were later recovered from the battlefield, and which family members had said could be disposed of by the military. …
Officials with Waste Management Inc., which operates the landfill, said the company was not informed about the origin of the ashes. …
The disclosure of the landfill disposals comes in the aftermath of multiple federal investigations that documented “gross mismanagement” at Dover Air Force Base, which receives the remains of all service members killed in action in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere overseas.
On Tuesday, the Air Force acknowledged that the mortuary had lost a dead soldier’s ankle and an unidentified body part recovered from an air crash; had sawed off a Marine’s arm so his body would fit in his casket; and had improperly stored and tracked other remains.
The Air Force disciplined three mortuary supervisors after an 18-month investigation, but has not fired any of them, despite calls from lawmakers and veterans’ groups for tougher action.
Since June 2008, the Dover mortuary has been placing the cremated remains of body parts in urns for burial at sea.
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