Posted on 06/11/2015 9:43:00 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The Defense Department announced in April that the remains of up to nearly 400 unaccounted for service members tied to the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor will be exhumed.
That process began on Monday.
This was the first set of remains from the USS Oklahoma to be disinterred, said Jim Horton, the director of the Punchbowl cemetery.
Disinterment ceremonies were held when the bones of Korean War veterans were exhumed for identification. Now, hundreds who served on USS Oklahoma during World War II may also be identified.
The attacked happened at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. But many bodies werent removed until months later, making it difficult to positively identify the servicemen.
We will take care of disinterring 65 caskets in 41 grave sites. That is approximately 388 sets of remains, said Horton.
As each set of remains is removed, special ceremonies will be held at the cemetery.
We will have full military detail. The coffins are draped with the American flag when they are removed and they are given full military transfer, added Horton.
The remains will face months of DNA and forensic work, but those who suffered a loss in Pearl Harbor are one step closer to peace.
A good deed.
Why now? Why not let them rest in peace?
I agree leave them be
Why now? Why not let them rest in peace?
...
Because now we have the technology to identify them.
It makes me wonder what our technology will be like a thousand years from now.
I read that. I cannot imagine what that was like for those divers...the book told you, but...
Great book.
Disinterment ceremonies were held when the bones of Korean War veterans were exhumed for identification.
...
I read that the unknown soldier from the Vietnam war was recently identified, removed and placed in his own grave.
I think they will have to try and Exhume the 900 Sailors and Marines that are still in the U.S.S. Arizona because the Ship it’s self will eventually rust away.
Mixed feelings about this. While, it might be appropriate to identify the remains so families can have closure and couldbreinter the remains in other places, it isn’t that the families likely didn’t know the whereabouts of their loved ones decades ago. Maybe it might be best to let them rest in peace with their shipmates.
I kind of wondered the same.
The disturbance to the remains turned over to the lab for picking through and inspecting seems out of place to me. To satisfy the science so that we who are left can know their names for a day, and then move along?
Leave heroes with their God, their bodies to earth’s tomb, in peace. (imho)
For Your Attention
That just seems most correct to me. Leave them alone. The dead know nothing and the living have already grieved. Why start it all again?
Lord, I miss my country..
I believe the families had closure, and lived in peace that their loved one was not alone but was in peace, in the company of heroes whom they must have loved.
Arlington Cemetery itself could offer no more gallant field in which to lie in repose than the sacred waters of Pearl Harbor.
its called respect.....its called tribute.....we should honor in all ways possible our sailors and soldiers who were killed by our enemies....even if its a token gesture, it says something about OUR country even now....that we have a sliver of decency left...
It’s unlikely anything organic is left to identify.
My understanding garnered from the article is that the remains of our Soldiers, Marines, and Sailors that were on the Oklahoma were removed from the ship and buried in caskets on land. If this is what happened, I have no issue with identifying the remains, and hopefully given full military honors burial.
If they are interred on the ship, I think they should be allowed to remain there, undisturbed.
How can we, as a country, waste our energy on this endeavor? I thought United States of America’s top priority was transgenderism.
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