From uucp Wed Oct 27 16:00 EDT 1993 >From jd Wed Oct 27 15:58:16 EDT 1993 remote from hogpa.att.com Received: from hogpa.att.com by hopper.acs.virginia.edu.ACS.Virginia.EDU; Wed, 27 Oct 1993 16:00 EDT Received: from hogpd.ho.att.com by hogpa.ho.att.com (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA07994; Wed, 27 Oct 93 15:58:01 EDT Received: by hogpd.ho.att.com (4.1/6.0c-FWP); id AA06325; Wed, 27 Oct 93 15:58:16 EDT Date: Wed, 27 Oct 93 15:58:16 EDT From: jd@hogpa.att.com Message-Id: <9310271958.AA06325@hogpd.ho.att.com> To: att!hopper.acs.virginia.edu!jad Content-Type: text Content-Length: 8107 Status: OR Article 17707 of alt.conspiracy: Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,alt.activism,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.individualism,alt.censorship,misc.headlines,soc.culture.usa,misc.activism.progressive Path: cbnewsl!cbnewsk!att!linac!uwm.edu!wupost!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!rich From: jad@Turing.ORG (John DiNardo) Subject: Part I, Within America's Soul, Hitler is Victorious Message-ID: <1992Dec1.202151.27711@mont.cs.missouri.edu> Followup-To: alt.activism.d Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu Keywords: Within America's soul, Hitler is victorious Sender: news@mont.cs.missouri.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu Organization: The Turing Project, Public Access Internet Host Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1992 20:21:51 GMT Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu Lines: 127 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 18:03:56 CST Reply-To: Rich Winkel UMC Math Department Sender: Activists Mailing List From: Rich Winkel UMC Math Department Subject: Inside the Desert Storm Mortuary To: Multiple recipients of list ACTIV-L /** mideast.gulf: 92.0 **/ ** Topic: Inside the Desert Storm Mortuary ** ** Written 8:38 am Mar 26, 1991 by hfrederick in cdp:mideast.gulf ** Subject: Inside the Desert Storm Mortuary >From jfranklin Tue Mar 26 08:16 PST 1991 FACES OF WAR: INSIDE THE DESERT STORM MORTUARY BY JONATHAN FRANKLIN DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, DELAWARE - Beneath the corpse, on a steel tray lays a clean, folded American flag. I slowly raise my eyes and focus upon the soldier's charred face. Under the bright mortuary light, the crude sutures in his black lips glisten. I step around the gurney to inspect his deflated skull. I'm supposed to be looking at this scene through the eyes of a moonlighting mortician, not a nosy journalist. But after weeks of preparation and now a day inside the Desert Storm mortuary, I'm beginning to think I could really embalm, if I had to. The chief mortician must be equally convinced as he summons me to his corpse. "Got your embalming license Franklin? You can start this afternoon." I ponder the idea only long enough to imagine the National Enquirer headline: "Undercover Journalist Embalms War Dead." I have seen enough - possibly too much - and I found a clue suggesting the Pentagon is masterfully underreporting the number of U.S. combat casualties. But for now, I need to escape. "Uh, I'm gonna grab some lunch and get my [embalming] license from my hotel room," I tell the stocky chief mortician. "I'll be back in a couple hours." As I wait for the hearse to escort me free, I take a last morbid stroll. I look once more at the vicious wounds. The insanity, the illusions never end. Calm clerks stuff Permaglo-packed bodies into crisp uniforms. Medals, ribbons and rank insignia are impeccably aligned across a soldier's lifeless chest. I visit each of the six naked bodies scattered across the tile floor. Rigor mortis has captured their last agonizing poses. In a far corner, a young Marine arches his neck back and draws his mouth wide, his last second must have been a terrifying scream. The last expression of the shrouded lump to his right will always be a mystery. "They're still looking for his head," a mortuary clerk whispers to me. Nearly a month before I entered the mortuary, I began gathering information. For nearly three weeks I buried myself in the world of morticians, embalmers, and mortuary science professors. Posing as an actor with an upcoming role as a novice embalmer who enters a military mortuary, I was openly welcomed into this notoriously closed society. I read Mortuary Management magazine until it felt obvious that Permaglo is an embalming fluid and Tk the king of the casket industry. I entered the mortuary to quell my hunch that the Pentagon is underreporting U.S. casualty figures. Military strategists knew, that if the U.S. television audience could be prevented from seeing - or knowing - about dead Americans, the war would retain popular support. The unprecedented reporting restrictions imposed upon the U.S. media assured that virtually no first hand descriptions or photos of dead Americans would leave the Gulf. Given the media's feeble attempts at independent reporting, why wouldn't military officers be tempted to lie during war's inevitable chaos? Inside the military's largest mortuary there is no chaos. The mortuary staff at Dover are professionals, they show no emotion. Except for one young secretary who is obviously unnerved: "Do something about that mouth," she shouts to no one in particular. "That mouth" is a grapefruit-sized hole torn through the face of a young soldier parked alongside the secretary's desk. A half dozen mortuary "Inspectors" huddle above the dead soldier. She will be rebuilt. She will be "cosmetized" and tucked into a fresh uniform. The illusion of a quiet peace may even rest upon her plaster lips. Every mortuary worker who saw her naked body recognize this lie. They know the violence which ripped through her body. Later that week, newspaper and television reports show only her smiling face. She is heralded as a patriot who volunteered her life for the nation's security. Stretched out before me, she looks like a murdered teenager. Throughout the 80's Dover was symbolic with the country's collective mourning: the Challenger crew, the 241 Marines killed in Beirut and the U.S. soldiers killed during the invasion of Panama. Here the nation publicly remembered its tragedies. Apparently someone in the Bush Administration didn't want television images reminding Americans that Desert Shield would cause tragedies. Two days after the Gulf War began, public ceremonies at Dover were abruptly cancelled. Base spokesman Chris Geisel insisted the cancellation were designed to save families the "hardship" of travelling to Dover. But as a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union contended, the policy appeared to be another part of the Pentagon's strategy to suppress television images of dead U.S. troops. When I enter the Dover Air Force Base mortuary, during the height of the brief ground war, fresh coils of barbed wire surround the shoddily constructed metal warehouse. Searchlights aid armed guards who patrol the facility. The sight of dead U.S soldiers, one of the Pentagon's most closely held secrets, is housed in this nondescript building. The barbed wire and searchlights are designed to keep prowling journalists from providing an uncensored, first-hand confirmation of U.S. war casualties. When bureaucratic hurdles failed to assure the security of censorship, the Pentagon relied on brute force. Intrepid photographers who skirted military police lines and shot pictures of U.S. soldiers killed by an Iraqi scud missile, were ordered to relinquish their film to U.S. military personnel, according to the Washington Post. Given this censorship, the media has no safeguards if military authorities desire to underreport war casualties. Few media organizations independently confirm the military claims, nor do they seem aware of the well-documented history of Pentagon deception. (to be continued) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The America Public is evidently in dire need of the truth, for when the plutocracy feeds us sweet lies in place of the bitter truth that would evoke remedial action by the People, then we are in peril of sinking irretrievably into despotism. So, please post the episodes of this ongoing series to other bulletin boards and post hardcopies in public places, both on and off campus. By doing so, you are performing the same patriotic service as did Paul Revere. John DiNardo