[purelegance]

just curious if anybody has an opinion on the Pentagon's decision to reverse the ban on pictures on coffins taken by the media? There is a requirement where the families have to give the okay.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/s...6965734&page=1

As a local of Dover, and as a wife & friend of many current & prior service wo/men, I think it is absolutely disrespectful. I see the families being taken advantage of by the media, just so they can plaster pictures of the caskets all over the news. Maybe if more of the media understood why those men & women wanted to fight over there, i'd be okay with it. However, I definitely think it will be twisted around by the end of the week. Some moments just need to be kept private, a soldier returning home to be laid to rest -- is absolutely, undoubtley one of those moments!

Sorry, this is all the talk around town today and really gets me going.

[Samual]

It is legal here, all they do is when a body is returned to England they video the footage of the coffin being removed from the aeroplane with the Union Jack covering the coffin, they don't tell you exactly who is inside or anything and the family have to agree to it.

[mcmama]

It's probably not a bad idea to allow families to make this decision. I live in a community with many active deployed, and the perception is that the rest of the country doesn't really understand that there's a war on, what it means, or that they are doing a job to be supported. Keeping it invisible is no good.

But in this era of 24 hour news business, I'd hate to see a family's grief exploited.