Military action often leads to casualties. It's an unfortunate reality that when service members are sent in to harm's way serious injuries and deaths will occur. Evidence of the carnage of war and military action has been around since the 1800's. Civil War photographers captured images of dead American and Confederate soldiers who died in some of the fiercest battles our country has ever seen. The 20th Century introduced us to video. Since World War 2, the public has been exposed to the realities our service members face, even if that understanding is gleaned from images over time.

When Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom began in November of 2001 and March of 2003, respectively, our country was reminded that service members not only go into harm's way, but pay the "ultimate sacrifice." Images of American flag draped coffins returning home became something that reminded the country that while we are here, safe and surrounded by our normal lives, soldiers are thousands of miles away fighting an enemy that didn't fight a conventional war. The images of fallen soldiers and their grieving families were a dramatic shock to the American psyche.

Soon after the Iraq war began, a policy forbidding the publishing of these images was put in place by our government. In fact, the policy was so stringent that people lost their jobs for publishing images. An article from the New York Times published on April 23, 2004 states, "(the firings show) the strictness with which the Pentagon and the Bush administration have pursued a policy of forbidding news organizations to showing images of the homecomings of the war dead at military bases. They have argued that the policy was put in place during the first war in Iraq, and that it is simply an effort to protect the sensitivities of military families." You can read the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/23/us/pentagon-ban-on-pictures-of-de...

Opponents of this policy argued that the policy was a way to cover up the cost of war and keep American public opinion about the conflicts positive. Politicians seemed to worry that publishing images that displayed the true cost of war would discourage American opinion toward the operations abroad.

Recently, however, it came to the public's attention that soldier remains were being discarded in landfills (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/air-force-dum...). While reports have indicated that no high ranking Pentagon or White House personnel knew of the disposal, this raises serious concerns. On one hand, we are limited by government policy as to what photos we can see. This raises questions as to the candor of our officials about the true results of war. While anyone can look at casualty totals by doing a simple Google search, it influences people differently when they see remains returning.

We also need to ask the question,"Who is in charge?" How can we have a strict, government policy enforcing the limiting the type of photos used, but not a clear, understandable, and enforceable policy for the disposable of unidentified remains? Does the fault sit with the Air Force personnel who handle the remains? Does the blame sit with higher government officials who should have total oversight of soldier remains? Who exactly do we hold accountable? I'm not trying to play a blame game, but somebody knew and somebody authorized these actions.

As a veteran, I feel those unidentified, cremated remains could have been placed at the Tomb of the Unknown in Arlington. I mean, isn't that why we have that memorial?

I'm not speculating as to who, why, or how this happened. All I'm saying is this sort of action cannot continue. If we claim that photos are off limits to respect families, what is our excuse when veteran remains are mixed in with last week's trash?

As a veteran, friend, or family member of a veteran, what are your thoughts about this? How should we as veterans and civilians approach this? How should we explain to our officials that actions like this are wholly unacceptable?