Death on Duty

[nigeats]

Recently 4 of our military personnel were killed on active service in Afghanistan. As were saw on the media news blogs they were flown home soon afterwards. With them on the flight back to Blighty was another soldier who had been killed approx 2 weeks earlier. I wondered why has this man had only now been flown home to his family. I have since found out that the MOD transport bodies back in groups of 5 which to my mind is Scandalous in attempting to save a few quid.

[Littlegreen]

I think your gen is a little duff. UK MoD policy is to fly bodies in C17s which contain no other cargo. To this end, it may sometime take a short period of time to generate the free space in the operational tempo. There are no criteria on the number of bodies; the C17 that flew Mne Wright home is an example here. It is never a fixed period, but on average runs at about a week I think. Although the US fly deceased servicemen and women home within a day or so, the bodies are loaded as cargo wheras the UK try to afford some dignity to the deceased and their family. There is no perfect solution, but I know that no soldier would wish to hold up operational resupply to allow his body to be flown home. My attitude, and that of many others, is that in death there is no hurry. I'd rather the front line had bullets.
This is not my job, I just happen to know about this. Please don't harangue me.

LG

[Tab]

It was not all that long ago when you buried in the country that you died in

[ArmyBrat]

very true, it was only until 25 years ago (i believe) that they started to bring the bodies back from the countries. Regardless, the soldiers that have served and lived or died deserve our utmost respect!