Senate OKs Bill on War Zone Mortuaries Atlanta Journal Constitution | May 02, 2006Washington - The Senate on Monday approved Legislation offered by Georgia's two U.S. senators that would force the Pentagon to re-evaluate the way it treats its war dead and their families.
The amendment from Sen. Saxby Chambliss and Sen. Johnny Isakson, both Republicans, was approved on a voice vote and attached to a must-pass emergency budget bill needed to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It directs the Pentagon to consider providing mortuary services in war zones rather than shipping Soldiers' bodies back to the United States for autopsy and embalming. It also says Soldiers' families should be given updated information about how the Soldiers died.
"Our heroes deserve nothing less than a respectable and appropriate farewell," Chambliss said in a statement.
The Georgians were prompted to introduce the legislation after the body of Sgt. Paul Saylor of Bremen, a member of the Georgia National Guard's 48th Brigade Combat Team killed in Iraq last August, arrived home so badly decomposed that his family could not hold an open-casket funeral.
Though Saylor had been dead only three days, the ice in which his body had been packed melted in the Iraq heat, accelerating decomposition.
"I hope this measure will help ensure the treatment of a fallen Soldier is the absolute best our nation can provide," Isakson said in a statement.
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