Honoring a Service Member’s Ultimate Sacrifice
Author: Bonnie Carroll
In this post on the New York Times At War blog, TAPS founder Bonnie Carroll discusses the many issues involved in memorializing our fallen military. Many surviving families are hurt when their loved one's service and sacrifice is not memorialized by a government, community or organization because of where or how their loved one died. Carroll writes on the blog:
"Our nation honors each deceased military member with the same folded American flag, the same military headstone or marker and the same rendering of honors at the burial. Their surviving families receive the same financial benefits whether the death occurs on American soil or in a foreign land, or whether it is a suicide or an illness or an accident or a hostile act. Memorialization should not be about where or how a death occurred. It should be about honoring the life offered in service to country."