Thread: Gulf Oil Slick
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Old 06-04-2010, 07:54 AM   #73
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Originally Posted by AtLastHome View Post
Ummm... if my facts are correct... I remember President Obama receiving the bodies of fallen soldiers at about 4 am early in his term. I believe (if I am wrong, do tell me), that this was the first time the bodies of the fallen were greeted by a US President upon arriving home since the start of both the Iraq & Afghanistan Wars.
Yep, that's what happened. There is an official 'ceremony' (not the right word, but it's too early for the dictionary side of my brain to work) for each casket - part on the plane and part once on the tarmac. Though the cameras were there for only one or two of these, Obama stayed all night.

Also, until Obama, no cameras had been allowed since 1991:

President George H.W. Bush's administration imposed the ban on media coverage of the arrival of fallen troops' remains at Dover Air Force Base during the Gulf War in February 1991. It came about after a controversy arose when Bush held a news conference at the same moment the first U.S. casualties were returning to Dover the day after the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, and three television networks carried the events live on split screen, with Bush appearing at one point to joke while on the opposite screen the solemn ceremony unfolded at the Delaware base.

Both Republican and Democratic administrations have upheld the Dover ban, but both have also made notable exceptions, which some observers view as politically expedient. For example, under President Bill Clinton in October 2000, the Pentagon distributed photographs of coffins arriving at Dover bearing the remains of military personnel killed in the bombing of the USS Cole.

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