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Mourning the Solider
Two radio stories were completed that look at the military funeral.
AARP's Prime Time Radio asked for a more generic look at a funeral’s elements, the history and tradition and emotional sentiment. Voice of America wanted a more global view, how the US fits in with other countries mourning soldiers.
It’s remarkable how many of the traditions are the same all over the world. Apparently modeled on the British, countries in Africa and Asia all fire over a casket draped in the flag. Boots are turned backwards. A token is given to the family, a flag or certificate or a piece of the uniform.
Also present in each country’s funeral is the insistence that the body has been cared for until the end. It’s a nonnegotiable, as if the entire event itself—the fanfare, the parading—was the proof that the solider was buried properly and intact. Like a piece of performance art that doubles as a seal of approval.
It is an interesting contradiction, not just in our time (“we go to war with the army we have,” ala Rumsfeld), but from the Vietnam War all the back to the days when Roman soldiers were sent to cleanse at Ostia before being allowed into the city. A solider seems to simultaneously be the defender of and a pariah of a citizenry that doesn’t know quite what to make of trained killers.
These soldiers are, by definition, disposable which makes the proof of their disposal a tragic irony: why are we celebrating a death we created? It’s unfortunate that this irony is all together lost in how these funerals are portrayed in the press by yours truly.
Posted by 1000monkeys on December 2, 2005 10:20 PM