From The Times Argus, 3/24/05:
http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050324/NEWS/503240308/1002/NEWS01

Pentagon denies mother's plea for photo

By Rebeccaa Carr
Cox News Service

WASHINGTON --

A single red rose in hand, Karen Meredith leans over her son's simple
white stone marker at Arlington National Cemetery.

Tears fall before words.

It's her first visit since she buried 1st Lt. Kenneth Michael Ballard,
a fourth generation soldier, last fall.

Still fresh, like the soil churned behind her son's grave for another
row of dead, is her anger.

Anger at the way the Pentagon refused her sole wish when her son was
killed by a sniper last May to photograph his casket returning from
Iraq.

Meredith wanted to capture the way fellow soldiers respectfully draped
the American flag across the casket, tucking the sides just so, and
the way an honor guard watched over him as he was unloaded from a
cargo plane.

But the Pentagon firmly said "no."

It was against regulations and would violate the privacy of family
members of other slain soldiers.

"It's dishonorable and disrespectful to the families," said Meredith.

"They say it's for privacy, but it's really because they don't want
the country to see how many people are coming back in caskets."

The Pentagon's reasons for denying the media access to the caskets
returning to Dover Air Force Base are widely reported and legally
contested.

What isn't so well known is that the Pentagon refuses to allow the
families of dead soldiers access to the caskets returning to Dover and
other military bases.

"It's bad enough that they won't let the country see the pictures of
the caskets, but a grieving mother?" asked Meredith.

"It's unforgiveable after what I lost."

The Department of Defense defends its policy, which was created in
1991 by then-secretary of Defense ***** Cheney.

The policy protects the privacy of families who have lost loved ones
in the war and who may not want their son or daughter's casket
inadvertently photographed, said Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Defense
Department spokesperson.

What families of dead soldiers really want is "the expeditious return
of their remains," not photographs at Dover, Venable said.

The department strongly discourages family members from coming to
Dover to watch the caskets of the dead unload.

"It's a tarmac, not a parade ground," Venable said.

The caskets arriving at Dover are similar to the "hearse pulling up to
the back of a funeral home," he said.

Meredith says she was prepared to lose her son in battle.

What she wasn't prepared for was the way the military treated her when
he died from a sniper's bullet in the head.

She doesn't understand how a single photograph of his casket for her
own personal album would violate her own privacy.

"It is ironic that this policy denies us the very freedoms of the
press and speech my son -- and so many like him -- gave their lives to
protect," Meredith says.

Some families think the caskets should be photographed.

Some families say they shouldn't.

There is no consensus on this point, said Joyce Raezer, director of
government relations for the National Military Family Association, a
Virginia-based nonprofit organization with 30,000 members.

The organization does not have an official opinion about requests like
Meredith's, but Raezer believes from her conversations with families
who have lost a loved one that most would support allowing the family
of a dead soldier to have a photograph.

She suggests that the military take the photo when the casket arrives
and include it in the materials they routinely give to families when
there is a loss.

"There is a difference between taking photos and showing it to the
world every time a plane comes to Dover and taking a photo for a
personal memento for the family," Raezer said.

Open government advocates are rallying behind Meredith and other
family members who want to see photos of their loved ones at Dover.

They view this as another attempt by the Bush administration to keep
the actions of the government secret.

They suspect that the ban is to prevent the public from getting too
upset about the war in Iraq.

"I think it's a atrocious that they won't allow photos," said Rick
Blum, executive director of Openthegovernment.org, an umbrella
organization of conservative and liberal organizations concerned about
excessive secrecy in government.

"The pictures show the true cost of war and the honor and the respect
that the military gives to their sacrifice."

Other open government advocates suspect that there may be political
reasons for denying the public access to photograph the caskets.

"The policy keeps these remarkable images off the front pages and off
television as if out of sight could mean out of mind," said Tom
Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, a
nonpartisan research institute based in Washington.

"The policy disguises this steady, mounting toll."

The Pentagon's policy of banning photos at Dover is being challenged
in federal court by Ralph Begleiter, a journalism professor from the
University of Delaware.

Begleiter has requested all still and moving images of fallen soldiers
returning in caskets dating back to October 2001 when the war in
Afghanistan started.

He filed his request under the Freedom of Information Act, a federal
law that requires agencies to make records and materials available to
the public, with the support of the National Security Archive.

"This is not a partisan political issue," said Begleiter in a release
about his lawsuit posted on the Internet.

"It's all about allowing the American people to accurately and
completely assess the price of war."

The case is still pending.

___________________________________________________________

Harry