I don’t get it. Whose ox is being gored here?
Empty casket. Bad taste, yeah.
And a country full of people looking for something, anything, to be offended about.
I guess it's a matter of what standards people are expected to adhere to. At one end no one is really surprised that a sailor or marine who pulls into a foreign port after four months at sea might get drunk in public. At the other end of the spectrum a guard from the Tomb of the Unknowns can have his Tomb Guard Identification Badge revoked even after he becomes a civilian if he does something deemed dishonorable.
I guess people expect soldiers assigned to an honor guard to always be respectful around a flag draped coffin, even an empty one.