Sorry this one is a bit morbid. I flew across country (Philadelphia to San Francisco) with my girlfriend to visit her good friends for the Thanksgiving holiday. I noticed 2 chaplains (Army & USMC, a SSgt & a Master Sgt) travelling together in 1st Class & said to her I thought that portended ill; that these were likely the guys who inform families their children have been killed overseas. It seemed odd to me these guys from different services would be travelling together, and they looked a little grim.
I was a little off; they were in fact (according to an announcement made just before we landed) sheperding 2 bodies of US soldiers home to California for burial. I have a few questions:
Why are we using commercial airliners to move these remains?
Why are we announcing this to passengers?
Are the seats and cargo changes for this donated by the airlines, or are we paying for it, and if so, how much (market rate or discounted?)
My guess is that there is no official policy to make such announcements, but instead the pilot chose to do so. Also, I doubt that they were flying on first-class tickets. My guess is that they were upgraded from coach class, again at the discretion of the airline.
There’s nothing unusual about shipping bodies as cargo. If you die abroad, that’s how you’re coming home. And even if not free or cheaper, a couple of first-class tickets will be a helluva lot cheaper for the military than operating a special flight.
Chaplains were always officers when I was in the service, not enlisted as the OP suggested. Makes me wonder if they were chaplains or just senior enlisted escorting the bodies home.
Granted, I’ve never been in uniform (other than a Boy Scout uniform), but my FIL has a buddy who retired from the USN as a Master Chief. During Vietnam, he often was the one bringing bad news to the parents/wifes of service men lost during that conflict. While he would often bring a chaplain, or the local family pastor/priest/rabbi/etc, it was often a case of “who’s available” to make the notification, not one of “call the officer”.
One: transport of remains from Dover to the location of domicile is normally done via common airline freight. Only in special cases would you get military transport.
Two: Part of your “death benefits” for active-duty personnel is transportation of remains to the hometown-of-record, by common commercial carrier. If a combat death, the entire funerary expense – both the airline transfer and your local Funeral Home’s – is covered. The US Government pays, it’s not donated.
In the airline biz we haul bodies all the time in the cargo hold, right there next to your luggage and somebody’s shipment of frozen fish or electronics parts. It’s just another box & we charge by the pound.
A lot of folks are getting all dewy-eyed about military casualties these days and so yellow-ribbon style announcements are becoming more common from the cabin crews. It’s essentially prohibited at my carrier, but some flight attendants do it anyhow.
Thank you all for the answers… just flew back home last night & wasn’t able to log in; wasn’t trolling, just couldn’t access a terminal.
They could well have been chaplains assistants; they were certainly a SSgt & a MSgt & they had chaplain-type insignia.
My questions stemmed from wondering about the cost (we’re talking about driving (?) the bodies up from Dover to Philadelphia, then from SF to final destination, plus the time of the 2 men from the services), the fact that the military already has a huge nationwide network to move freight and people which presmuably already includes coast-to-coast flights and the fact that the US Army & USMC obviously (understandably) would like their people to observe the procedure along each step, which is elimated if their own people handle the job. It just doesn’t seem efficient.
Yes, I was a bit disturbed to learn that the military will ship you out themselves and back home (at least into the US) themselves alive but contract out your shipping dead.
Actually, the military has a very small network for moving frieght any more, and contracts the majority of it out to the airlines / UPS, etc. Many, if not most, of the (live) troops moving to/from overseas do so on chartered airliners, not on military planes. Airlines deliver them to garden spots all over the world. The last few miles into the shooting part of the war zone are done on military planes, but even then airliners are brought to well within getting-shot-at range every day.
If that is the most cost-effective means for doing so… why not? As LSLGuy has pointed out, dead bodies are routinely shipped along with other cargo on commercial airlines. They even have containers specifically designed for this purpose.
Your question - “are we paying for it?” - seems to imply there are situations where we *aren’t * “paying for it”. The money for the military comes out of our taxes, so when the deceased are carried on military airplanes it’s still your taxes paying for it, in the end. Either way, the public bears the burden.
Because folks get emotional over war dead? Because other folks might have been thinking along the same lines as you were when they saw the two military dudes seated together?
Personally, the dead don’t bother me. They’re quiet, undemanding, and never complain.
Of course the tickets are not totally free - someone somewhere along the line has to pay for fuel, etc. to keep the airplanes flying. On the other hand, I don’t have a problem with using tax money to pay for the “final expenses” of someone who died in service to the country. It seems the least we could do.
And, as “American cemetaries” dotted around the world show, not all those who die in the military return to their home soil.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the airlines, like hotels, have “government rates” for employees. Heck, the commuter railroad I use charges a discounted fare to military personnel in uniform. The upgrade to first class probably was donated by the airline, but that’s their choice and it may be the seats were unsold and available. I would expect normal cargo charges in regards to the deceased. I do know that many commercial carriers have contracts with the government for transporting people and cargo, so that rate may be a negotiated discount based on volume - the same as any other business is free to negotiate.
I would expect that utilizing commercial airlines probably is cheaper than chartering or using military transports (although if a military transport is going the right way I wouldn’t be surprised if they loaded deceased personnel on occassion)