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Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Virginia disrespecting Military again

This state didn't want to count their ballets & now won't put this Marine's name on their War Memorial. Please read this...

State denies Marine recognition because of how he died

Marine Lance Cpl. Darrell Schumann, a 25-year-old
from Hampton, fought bloody door-to-door battles for three months in Fallujah in late 2004. A few weeks later, he boarded a helicopter for the first leg of his trip home.

The helicopter, carrying Schumann and 30 comrades, flew into
a sandstorm and crashed in the Iraqi desert, killing everyone on board. It remains the greatest single loss of U.S. troops in the Iraq war.

President Bush praised Schumann by name for his valor. But his name will not be found on the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond.

State officials have deemed that only the names of service members killed in hostile combat in the Middle East will be added to the stone-and-glass walls, which bear the names
of 11,600 Virginians killed since World War II.

Recent veterans who died under other circumstances, such as aircraft accidents, are excluded.

The policy has changed since the memorial was erected, and the names of many service members who were killed in accidents are found on the wall.

Rick Schumann, Darrell's father, wants the policy changed again.

The memorial will soon undergo an $8 million expansion, funded mostly by taxpayers.

"We want them to do it right," Schumann said.

The state relies on the Defense Department's classification of deaths: killed in action, hostile casualty or nonhostile casualty. To be included on the Virginia memorial, a service member must fall into one of the first two categories.

According to a Virginian-Pilot review of Department of Defense records, at least two dozen service members with Virginia roots died in accidents (Read more...)

4 comments:

~DebS~ said...

Well something needs to be done about that doesn't it? Shouldn't every Soldier who is killed as a RESULT of war on on Foreign or domestic soil be included on a Memorial? I certainly think so. As far as the military voting not counting? Is there anything the common folk can do about this? I am so upset about this because with the Military vote it could have changed the election outcome. My bet is that that is what the Dems didn't want and seem majority in Washington is all out liberal now so blocked that vote once again. It's tragic to me. Also on my blog I wrote about the fact that Obama's Campaign funds probably won't even be investigated even though WE ALL KNOW that there is a good chance that a high percentage of that money came from sources it wasn't supposed to including foreign Terrorist countries. I am more than sick of this double standard our country has.

Unknown said...

This is wrong. How does Virginia keep getting it so wrong? Sad, very sad!


~AirmanMom returning to her blog...

Sarge Charlie said...

this stinks, they were in a combat zone, enemy fire or not.

Unknown said...

Thanks for posting about this, I've seen very few people posting thus far,
but I did come across this post from a veteran who lives in Virginia

http://sthrngalva.blogspot.com/2008/11/we-can-do-better-than-this.html

and I've contacted many of the people she suggested.

As a Virginian, this just makes me ashamed.
I want to see this 'policy' changed.

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