Helen Thomas: Pentagon Manages War Coverage By Limiting Coffin Pictures [View All]

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Pentagon Manages War Coverage By Limiting Coffin Pictures
'Body Count' News Fueled Antiwar Sentiment During Vietnam Campaign

POSTED: 6:49 p.m. EST October 29, 2003
UPDATED: 6:51 p.m. EST October 29, 2003

WASHINGTON -- One of the lessons the U.S. government apparently learned from the Vietnam War is this: Don't let the American public see coffins arriving home with U.S. casualties from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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In a move by the Bush administration to suppress distressing images of war, the Defense Department issued a directive last March on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq that declared:
"There will be no arrival ceremonies for, or media coverage of, deceased military personnel returning to or departing from Ramstein (Germany) airbase or Dover (Del.) base, (and) to include interim stops."
Under the Pentagon clamp down, American fatalities will be reduced to statistics and the public will see little of the human side of the war.

Some in the Pentagon still blame the news media for the loss of South Vietnam. In a never-again mood after that war, the U.S. military planners designed the blueprint for future wars to limit media access -- as we saw later in Grenada and the first Gulf War.

Lt. Col. Cynthia Colin, a Defense Department spokeswoman, says the ban on media coverage stems from a compassion for the families, "to protect their wishes and privacy during the time of greatest loss and grief."

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/helenthomas/2593688/detail.html