Posted on 08/11/2003 6:17:06 PM PDT by sjersey
Ten months after he was fired from a veterans' cemetery for saying blessings at flag ceremonies, honor guardsman Patrick Cubbage returned to work today - only to discover that he is still barred from giving the blessing.
"It's worse than before," Cubbage said by cell phone as he drove home from Brig. Gen. William C. Doyle Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Wrightstown. "No one said 'God bless you.' I was out 10 months for this?"
Cubbage, 54, of Northeast Philadelphia, thought he had won a settlement last month that guaranteed guards the right to say "God bless you and your family, and God bless the United States of America" when presenting flags to the next of kin.
Not so, said retired Army Col. Stephen G. Abel, director of veterans' services in the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, which runs the vast Doyle cemetery.
As a result of the agreement with Cubbage, Abel said, families will now be asked if they wish to have a blessing at the close of the casket service.
"But it's not the role of an honor guard," Abel said. "Anyone who wants the blessing will receive it from the clergy person" or funeral-home staff, who sometimes lead the prayers.
A former Vietnam veteran and Philadelphia police officer, Cubbage was fired by the state agency in October.
Flags are presented to next of kin at a precisely scripted ceremony, which the honor guards played out more than a dozen times at funerals today: Two guards, in dress uniform, approach the coffin and remove the flag.
In stiff, slow movements they remove the flag and hold it horizontally during the playing of Taps, then fold it into a triangle showing just the stars.
One of the guards raises the flag to eye level in a gesture reminiscent of raising a communion cup, and hands it to the other, who steps before the kin and says (as in the case of a Navy veteran):
"On behalf of the President of the United States and the chief of naval operations, please accept this flag as a symbol of your loved one's services to this country and a grateful Navy."
When the funeral included prayers, Cubbage then added the blessing.
His superiors, who include Abel, had admonished him several times not to use the blessing, saying it was optional only for Air Force personnel, and only for families who request it.
Abel today pointed to a piece of paper taped next to the chapel's lectern, which reads: "Blessing for Air Force veteran: 'God bless you and this family, and God bless the United States of America.' "
However, a spokeswoman for the Department of Defense offered a different interpretation of the rules. In an e-mail today to The Inquirer, Lt. Col. Cynthia Colin wrote that the blessing "is optional for every military service."
The spokeswoman cited the Defense Department pamphlet "Honoring Those Who Served," which says: "If the next of kin has expressed a religious preference or belief, add: 'God bless you and this family, and God bless the United States of America.' "
Advised by phone today of that interpretation, Abel expressed surprise, but he said it was not the Defense Department that set the flag presentation protocols, but each of the armed services.
"If all the services say they want us to use it, we'll use it," he said. "But that would be a change. They'll have to publicize it."
John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, which represented Cubbage and helped him negotiate the agreement to return to work, said his organization will challenge the state agency's interpretation.
Abel, who is a eucharistic minister at his Catholic parish, said the department's policy was not antireligious. Rather, he said, it was an effort to provide consistent ceremonies for all branches of the service.
"The whole idea is that every veteran gets the same [honor guard] service," he said.
Cubbage's case attracted national attention when it was reported in February, and the cemetery received more than 5,000 e-mails in protest.
Cubbage, who earns $16 an hour, returned to work today with back pay. But he said most of his coworkers gave him the cold shoulder, and he refused to sign the cemetery's new standard operating procedures because they did not represent his understanding of the agreement he negotiated.
"I was angry," he said. "I say they reneged."
That figures. A modernist Eucharistic "monster" who usurps the priest's role at church is suppressing funeral blessings of veteran families at his work.
A former Vietnam veteran..."
Ain't so such thing.
"That figures. A modernist Eucharistic "monster" who usurps the priest's role at church is suppressing funeral blessings of veteran families at his work."
Ping
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