Posted on 05/31/2006 2:55:03 PM PDT by Yossarian
That's what I was thinking, too...I was emailing a college friend about this (we were at a TU rival a few years back) and you just articulated what I was trying to say much more succinctly! Thank you! LOL! :-)
One of the articles I have since tracked down said that at the beginning of the week on a couple of occasions that she replied "Whitney" when they addressed her as "Laura" and apparently that may have been what triggered some of the piecing things together.
Interesting article with a much longer coroner interview than I saw with others about the role that physical ID cards on the students played at the scene. Still a big perplexed, especially having gone back to read the blog from the beginning...
I feel so badly for Whitney, it didn't sound like they had told her the whole story of the accident yet, but now with her having seen (and recognized upon them entering the room) her actual parents, yet having bonded with this other family, and having been referred to by another name for 5 weeks, they inevitably have had to tell her far more than they might have at this point had this whole mix-up not happened.
But just since I looked at the blog a few hours ago, it's clear this story was just hitting the media and there are comments from all over the world now. And looking at a few of the earlier entries, in particular, there are some really touching analogies Lisa (Laura's sister) shared about God's love and various events in their journey.
A whole lot of lives are going to be touched in ways beyond what these families probably had even thought from the beginning of all of this. They've mentioned so often how God's grace was carrying them, and I'm glad that they all have that in the days to come with the newest events.
Wow......
Yes and Yes. Horrible story - the mourners become joyous as the hopeful see their hopes vanish in an instant.
After the patients are in the hospital, there's time for positive identification. It seems odd that the parents never picked up on it. All I can figure is that both parents were in absolute shock. I can't imagine anything more horrible than losing a child. You're supposed to bury your parents at some point. One spouse usually buries the other. You're not supposed to bury your children. They should outlive you.
I am too, although perhaps for different reasons.
because I'm not sure how quickly they notify family
I can answer that: as fast as you can. When the first SF guys were killed in Afghanistan, an officer I know was literally racing a CBS News team to the rural village where his parents lived. The CBS ghouls wanted to wake the guy's parents up and put a microphone in their faces first thing, hit 'em with the news, and get the reaction for the whuffos -- and maybe also for the CBS people themselves to keep and watch, to gloat over.
The problem happened because a junior officer in the Pentagon press room mistakenly gave the press a press release with the names of the three American KIAs on it and an embargo date and time, thinking the journalists would do like they say in J-school and honour the embargo. Of course they didn't. (Lessons like these are why you hate the press by the time you're a field grade or staff NCO, if not sooner. But it's only fair, 'cause they sure hate you).
Even when you're not trying to keep a battalion of soldier-hating Geraldo emulators from piling on some poor shocked family, speed is of the essence. For one thing, the guys in country have their phones and email cut off until we know the family knows (otherwise word would go running through the families, and create a lot of stress, before the full truth could get its shoes laced).
they should have known something was up when they didnt recover a body.
Accountability is a very big deal in the military. Usually the senior NCO is responsible for giving the element commander an "up" on personnel and weapons before you move out. That means subordinate senior NCOs or element leaders have put eyes on every single individual and confirmed up the line.
That said, modern weapons can do ugly things to human bodies, and combat is confusing. Rumsfeld was not just talking about TV news when he said the first report is always wrong. So it could have happened the way your cousin said. I kind of think he's exaggeating a hair. I doubt word would get to his mother from official channels if he was not 100% stone cold dead. (It takes longer to notify family members of the wounded, and it's less urgent. For one thing, we do not cut of email or phones when guys are wounded. All the troops ARE warned to sit on that kind of info until families can be told.
Frequently during my sentence to the FOB, I was able to notify the family resource group, "you will hear about someone in country that got whacked, it is NOT any of our guys." This took a lot of load off the guys in the rear detachment who had 100 wives and mothers call every time CNN celebrated the death of an American.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
thanks for the info! although, I didnt get most of the acronyms... =P
yeah, like I said, I was skeptical about the details, but the gist of it is, his mother was told he was killed, and a few hours later, she received a phone call from her supposedly-deceased son. crazy stuff for a mother to deal with!
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