A tipster led me to this article from the AP: Troops' Gravestones Have Pentagon Slogans. Choice bits:
Nadia and Robert McCaffrey, whose son Patrick was killed in Iraq in June 2004, said "Operation Iraqi Freedom" ended up on his government-supplied headstone in Oceanside, Calif., without family approval.It would never be connected to politics! Never! Given that the people in the Pentagon are pretty much the only ones referring to the turmoil in Iraq and Afghanistan in such a way (okay, FOX News does too). Instead of "Operation Iraqi Freedom", I always refer to it as "that quagmire-type thing in Iraq where our soldiers and innocent civilians are dying and which will only get us into more trouble". This is ridiculous."I was a little taken aback," Robert McCaffrey said, describing his reaction when he first saw the operation name on Patrick's tombstone. "They certainly didn't ask my wife; they didn't ask me." He said Patrick's widow told him she had not been asked either.
"In one way, I feel it's taking advantage to a small degree," McCaffrey said. "Patrick did not want to be there, that is a definite fact."
The owner of the company that has been making gravestones for Arlington and other national cemeteries for nearly two decades is uncomfortable, too.
"It just seems a little brazen that that's put on stones," said Jeff Martell, owner of Granite Industries of Vermont. "It seems like it might be connected to politics."
PD doesn't think anything is a big conspiracy...except maybe how my favorite bar always runs out of my brand of vodka before I'm blind drunk.
There is always Jon Stewart's name for it: Mess O'Potamia
Read the whole article. Families are supposed to be given a choice but many aren't, like the people quoted in the above excerpt. And, no, all other tombstones in the cemetary do NOT have militaristic slogans on them. They state the bare facts: name, rank, dates of birth and death, and the name of the war, nothing propagandic. In the past, any sentiment, patriot or personal, was paid for by the family. It cost "extra." The article points out that families are being told they get to choose between two pro-war slogans. They are not told they have the option of just saying the name of the war, as was done in the past, i.e. Korean War, Viet Nam war. If these tombstones were following suit they would merely say Iraq war. Your tax dollars at work.
The Korean War and the Vietnam War weren't declared either. But that is what they are called in the cemetery.
I'm not sure this is quite the scandal it seems.
If you go to Arlington National Cemetary -- or other military cemetary -- it is not uncommon to see some refernce to the conflict or particular battle in which a soldier was killed on their gravestone.
Since Iraq is not part of any declared war, I assume the military just chose to revert to it's official designation.
I realize it looks bad, and I'm not exactly a big fan of our current disasterous foreign policy, but I'm not sure this story is reflective of any big conspiracy, etc.