Funeral Honor, uh, No Honor Guard

[Mike11C11B]

Photos speak for themselves. Wisconsin National Guard looking into soldiers unprofessional actions with jacking up flags because it's so cold and hoodlums posing with caskets. No better link for now, but pics are futher down on Wisconsin National Guard's facebook page.
https://m.facebook.com/WisconsinGuard?i ... 53103&_rdr

[Jim]

Photos speak for themselves. Wisconsin National Guard looking into soldiers unprofessional actions with jacking up flags because it's so cold and hoodlums posing with caskets. No better link for now, but pics are futher down on Wisconsin National Guard's facebook page.
https://m.facebook.com/WisconsinGuard?i ... 53103&_rdr

Amazing. I've been following this, too:

https://www.facebook.com/Grunts11Bravo/ ... 2769485852

[Mike11C11B]

Here we go. By the way, the NCOIC is backing his soldiers.
https://www.facebook.com/OnPointUSA?ref=stream

[IEDmagnet]

What the flying fork?! I see a bunch of privates just preceding their discharge for being absolute pieces of crap. I don't even have a coherent thought right now, I sent too many friends home from Iraq and Afghanistan in coffins like that for these forking pricks to still be stealing oxygen. I put a douche in jail today that I have more respect for.

Makes the Guard look horrible, and the Army as a whole to people who don't know the difference.


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[Jim]

This is stupid. Tomorrow, I will e-mail the WIARNG for a comment. Welcome to the FaceBook generation. Have we ever seen really stupid things done by the troops?

[Silverback]

While disgusting....stuff like this has been happening for a very long time. Facebook is how these got caught.

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[Sleepy Doc]

While disgusting....stuff like this has been happening for a very long time. Facebook is how these got caught.

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Concur.

It used to be that you hoped the person developing your photos didn't make a few copies of your unflattering pics. Now people put them on FB for everyone to see. One of my brothers ex-girlfriends worked at a Fotomart in the 80's and had some pics that had to have been from Greneada. It was close ups of one or two soldiers holding corpses in poses. No unit patch was seen, and you couldn't tell the origin of the bodies, but it wasn't very professional what they were doing.

From what I understand having done a little research, this was a congratulatory pose from soldiers that had just completed funeral detail training, and the casket was empty. Completely understandable. It wasn't the greatest decision to post this anywhere. Clearly, the person responsible had no idea the sort of viral backlash she was in for. Also, completely understandable. Even her comment about somebody "getting a jacked up flag" because she was made to do her funerary duties is not that controversial, in and of itself. It most likely was concieved in a moment of levity, to try and salve the thought of standing for a long time outdoors at a funeral during a Wisconsin winter. If people only knew how many times first responders make similar comments when having to help the public at 3am. during a winter storm, they would be aghast. The difference is, most first responders know enough to keep those cards tightly to your chest, take a deep breath, and then go and do their job in the most professional manner possible.

Top-down leadership being what it is (or should be..), I also place some responsibility on the NCO that came to her defense, and the person/s in charge of the training. As soon as negative comments were coming forth, it would have been a better course of action had the NCO immediately made her take the pic down, and draft strongly worded statement of apology. The person in charge of the training could have prevented all of this if they had said "take all of the pictures you want, but none of them can be posted in the open". Because they have had problems in the past, the CT Fire Academy has a strict policy on photos and social media. You can take pictures, and they encourage it, as well they should. However, under no circumstances are any to be released in public without their express permission.

In my current profession, I come into similar circumstances all the time. Those that work in the fire/ems/ER professions have some of the foulest, blackest, most vulgar senses of humor you can imagine, and use that humor as a way of dealing with the horror that we see. I was at a party once with a dozen of so of my colleagues. We were talking shop, and making jokes about what we see and deal with. None of us realized there was a woman within earshot who had no understanding of what we do. After listening to our conversation for about 15 minutes she finally had enough. "Stop!!..", she cried! "these are people you are talking about!.." ..and she was right.

I like to think that this young lady-and all oft he soldiers in the photo, for that matter-if asked to, would have executed their duties in a professional manner. I also hope that she has learned her lesson. I hope that cooler heads prevail all around, because serving her death threats is only making this situation worse.

Stupid fucking mistake on her part. If she is guilty of anything , it is being a dip-shit.

[Lefty]

Words fail me here. I almost want to remove my location from my sigline. This is a total disgrace to the WIARNG, the state, and especially to the KIAs from here. I hope to God none of these buttheads were involved with the funerals I have attended here.
I am a member of the local VFW Honor Guard, and we have done outdoor ceremonies summerfallwinterspring in rain, snow, cold, and heat. We have folded flags with numb fingers and never even thought of cutting corners or wimping out. And I am "the kid" of the group! The other guys are mainly WWII and Korea vets. Until this last fall the Honor Guard commander was a 90+ year old WWII veteran who had been shot in the face by the Japanese in New Guinea, and he never shrank from the weather. He is tough enough today that I would bet on him in a fight with these dirtbags.
And the Guard's statement "We are looking into it" is a classic dodge.
Just plain old disgusting.

Edit to add: Sleepy Doc beat me to it while I was writing. A lot of truth in what he wrote, people who deal with tragedy as part of their profession can say or do what they want to deal with the stress, but best they keep it to themselves. Good points, but I still am disgusted.

[Sleepy Doc]

I am disgusted..

As am I, brother.. I make absolutely no apologies for their actions. Having done winter funerals here in New England, I know how unpleasant they are. I also know how much it means to the family seeing that someone takes the time to show up in their class A's and treat their loved ones with the respect and honor they are so richly deserved. I have no idea how many times the deceased answered the alarm at 3 am in their career, or what they encountered during their service..because it doesn't matter.

I grew up in a family that had strong roots in the military and public service. I only found out this year that people in my extended family have served in every major US conflict going back to the Revolution, and held everything from flag rank on down. (I think a very distant cousin was one of the "Andersonville Raiders"..) I was taught from a very early age that one stands and uncovers, or puts their hand over their heart when honoring the flag. I was also taught that when someone is being interred with a flag draped coffin, whether from federal service or otherwise, it is the highest honor, and deserving of the utmost respect. As a cherry volunteer firefighter in my youth I was moaning about having to stand 15 minute shifts at a funeral home for a deceased member that I never knew. I was promptly told to shut-the-fuck-up, because someday, someone, will do it for me out of respect..and I will never know who that person is.

Perhaps these were the wrong people chosen for the task they were given...

[Jim]

In the news:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/ ... 18841.html

USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... o/5579065/

[Jim]

More:

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014 ... =army-a.nl

[cams]

Disgraceful. First line of corrective action should be 6months remedial training with Hatetrain.

There'd be nothing left to even discharge after that.

[Jim]

Still more:

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014 ... 700&rank=1

And the USAF too.

http://www.military.com/video/forces/ai ... 158160001/