« Rumsfeld Charged with Torture while in France | US Military hands Security Control in Karbala to Iraqi Government »
October 27, 2007
Flag Folders Prevented from Reciting at Veteran's Funerals
This is one of those stories that makes your blood boil.
Because of a single complaint from an unknown attendee at a military funeral, the words spoken by the Honor Detail while the flag is being folded for the widow are no longer allowed:
During thousands of military burials, the volunteers have folded the American flag 13 times and recited the significance of every fold to survivors.The ban is not sitting well with long time members of the Honor Detail:
The first fold represents life, the second a belief in eternal life, and so on. The complaint revolved around the narration in the 11th fold, which celebrates Jewish war veterans and "glorifies the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob."
The National Cemetery Administration then decided to ban the entire recital at all national cemeteries. Details of the complaint weren't disclosed.
Veterans and honor detail volunteers, including Bobby Castillo, 85, and Rees Lloyd, 59, are furious. "That the actions of one disgruntled, whining, narcissistic and intolerant individual is preventing veterans from getting the honors they deserve is truly an outrage," Lloyd said. "This is another attempt by secularist fanatics to cleanse any reference to God." Castillo, a Navy veteran of World War II, said it's "a slap in the face to every veteran." "When we got back from the war, we didn't ask for a whole lot," Castillo said. "We just want to give our veterans the respect they deserve. No one has ever complained to us about it. I just don't understand."It sounds like a complaint regarding the political correctness of not including all faiths in the incantation or just some anti-religious nut. One would think the authorities would ignore the complaint if it was from some anti-Semite who objected to Jews being honored. Then again, you never know these days. Much that is passed off as political correctness is, in fact, nothing but disguised hate.