Shawn W. Baker wrote: > Oh boy, you know, the exact same thoughts crossed my mind yesterday. > While the young lady who drowned was no less a citizen of the United > States than John Kennedy, her body retrieval became a debatable issue > while the retrieval of Jr. was totally a non-issue. Of course fewer > environmental issues were directly involved with the plane crash, but > there was still a lot of diesel and helicopter fuel expended in the > search and later retrieval. As someone that lives near a small airport, the local paper regularly has news of small plane crashes, about the only time it gets any wider coverage is if someone is killed, and then only to editorialize about how unsafe the airport or small planes are. So I completely agree with the concerns about how much attention and effort was placed on this plane crash and recovery, purely based on the last name of the victim. On the other hand, I'm really interested in salvage and undersea exploration, so seeing all the latest salvage gadgets on the nightly news is kind of interesting, at least to me. Its also good for the navy to get unplanned real time drills for recovery and salvage operations, that kind of training is invaluable. > One thing that really bothers me--and I'm wrestling with myself whether > I'm right to be bothered or wrong--is that there was a great deal of > resources expended on a search, that by the 2nd or 3rd day, was for 3 > bodies. Would our government, or you as taxpayers, pay for a Naval > destroyer to transport my family to give my ashes to the ocean? I am > not trying to make light of this tragedy, but had this happened to any > of us, it would be no less tragic for our families, yet they would be > "on their own" in dealing with this. With his life directly "in the > public eye", did we, as a nation owe it to him more than the average > citizen? I have a friend who's father was retired navy. His dad received burial at sea (open to current or retired navy and dependents). It was actually the most reasonable cost methods to dispose of the body (as requested in the will). Its a regular part of destroyer duty to perform burial at sea. You hand over the body, later, you get some paperwork (copy of the service and ships log entry), a folded flag, and an empty rifle casing. Is is also not uncommon for civilians to hitch rides on navy vessels. There are regular "dependent cruises" typically as the ship is returning from duty. Or if you know just about anyone aboard a navy vessel, by asking nicely you can probably get a tour while docked, or a ride while leaving or returning to port. Its good public relations to do this, though typically you are just extra baggage on an already arranged sailing of the ship. This is how I got a chance to tour a submarine and carrier. I know several people that have been on sailing tours of submarines or surface ships. I've tried to get a ride on a carrier, but mostly the timing has not worked out. I do object to navy vessels being diverted from their normal patrols for this. I also object to the wailing and hand waving that this is any more a tragedy than anyone else being killing in a airplane or automobile accident. I had the same objection to the fuss raised over princess Diana and her auto accident. Yes its a tragedy, so is the thousands of fatal automobile accidents that happen in this and other countries, but you don't see the world stop to cover them for a week on the nightly news. Ob kayaking, You do have to be carefull how close you kayak to the naval shipyard, they will send out a patrol boat to warn you off. Its still pretty cool to see some of the larger vessels at dock. dave -- Dave Uebele (daveu_at_sptddog.com) Spotted Dog Systems http://sptddog.com/daveu.html *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Jul 23 1999 - 12:18:20 PDT
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