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Subscribe to RSSA former Air Force mortuary official says the decision that resulted in some cremated remains from 9/11 victims being dumped in a landfill came from higher-ups in the military.
William D. Zwicharowski, a civilian who was interim director of the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware in 2002, told The Washington Post that mortuary officials wanted to have the ashes buried at sea. But he says they were overruled.
“We fought the fight, but I had zero clout back then,” Zwicharowski said. “The decision was made at a higher level. Had I had the experience I have now, 10 years later, I would have stood up and probably just not done it.”
Zwicharowski declined to identify the military superiors.
An Air Force spokesman declined to comment but did not dispute Zwicharowski’s account, according to The Post.
A Defense Department report last week said some unidentified human remains recovered from the crash of American Airlines Flight 77 at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, were incinerated and dumped in a landfill rather than being buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Read the full Washington Post story
Quinton Keel, one of three officials accused of mismanaging the mortuary at Dover and of retaliating against Dover whistle-blowers, has resigned.
An independent federal investigative agency, the Office of Special Counsel, said Friday that it is in touch with Air Force officials about their final decisions on disciplinary action against the two other accused officials.
In November, the Office of Special Counsel issued a report accusing Keel and two other supervisors of "gross mismanagement" at the Dover facility, where small body parts of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan were lost on two occasions.
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If the USAF wants to maintain credibility with the troops and with the family members of the deceased who were treated so cavalierly, they will follow this up the chain of command until they find the dumb ass that gave the order and cashier him.
Please identify in order to correct this travesty. Shows you what your blood is worth to the brass.
I understand that there are a lot of heightened emotions surrounding the events of 9/11 and that likely is amplifying the outrage over this. However, I think we all need to step back a moment and consider that these were not complete bodies, these were small bits of tissue that had been degraded to a point that they could not be identified by DNA analysis. While I don't necessarily agree with the decision, the "higher ups" likely had to make a decision on how to dispose of the tissue and decided to treat it as biohazard.
This is the same way that amputated limbs, removed organs, excised tumors, aborted fetuses, etc are disposed of. It's not something we like to think about, but it happens every day all over the country.
Things like tendons and bones are routinely frozen and banked for later use. Many hospitals that do a lot of these surgeries stock these items so there are always a couple on hand. Occasionally things go wrong and the tissue is no good any more. For example, the OR thaws a tendon to prepare for a surgery the following morning, only when it's time for the case to start the patient is running a high fever and they have to postpone the surgery. The thawed tendon cannot be re-frozen, so it is Biohazarded and sent to a special company that specializes in disposing of this kind of waste. Most of it is incinerated and put into some type of landfill. There are no ceremonies or monuments or burials at sea for biohazard waste.
So, if you think about it there are many human remains already in the landfill and more sure to follow. The reason this story is getting everyone so riled up is because these were remains of 9/11 victims.
Hello folks, let me try and understand this. They were able to quickly remove every tiny bit of still burning metal from the demolitioned site and put it on a boat to China before forensics could be done on the metal but were unable to use the same diligence in removing the remains of loved human beings?
William D. Zwicharowski, you may have had zero clout , but you did not use your brain to inform someone else of what was really going on. You were worried about your job.
I agree, speaking your mind might be tough, but its the right thing to do
He's also refusing to identify these "mystery men". This makes me believe it was actually HIM that had this happen...
TP,
Either you are just ignorant, or totally oblivious about how things work!
Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind -- even if your voice shakes. ~~ Maggie Kuhn
what blatant disrespect to the victims and families that lost there lives and those who lost loved ones they were thrown away in the trash as if ther lives did not matter
I guess they are doing it now-burial at sea, now that the bad news broke but why in the hell didn't that occur to anyone in the first place? If they disrespected my son or daughter in this manner somebody's picture would be on a milk carton.
Stone, while I agree that what they did was disgusting, the remains were "Unidentified". Meaning that no family or friends came to claim them.
You or I would be upset over our children being treated that way, but then again. you or I would be there to identify and collect the remains. To see to it that they were properly buried.
I feel badly for the ones not identified. Who had no one in their life, and no one to grieve when they died.
From the article, the remains were small body parts that could not be identified to an individual person. I don't think a body or major part of a body was part of this, just "small" body parts such. They could have cremated them and put them in one place but not as bad as putting a body in a landfill
I work for a company that provides donated human tissue for transplant. When the tissue expires or is prematurely thawed or otherwise made unusable, hospitals routinely biohazard it. These are human remains from deceased donors. It happens all the time. Think about it. Tumors are removed, limbs amputated, fetuses miscarried, placentas discarded after birth, fat liposuctioned, skin removed during reconstructive surgery, breasts removed during mastectomies....
What do you think happens to all those body parts?
Now I'm not saying that the circumstances are exactly the same, or that the decision was the right one to make. But I can see how when making a judgement call on what to do with the small, burned, bits of unidentified human tissue, the thought process would be to treat it the same as any other bio waste. Given the circumstances of how the tissue came to be found and that som many families were never given remains to bury, IMO it would have been preferable to inter them at the 9/11 memorial in DC at a "tomb of the unknown" or something like that.
I'm more concerned that it seems that the same head of this department seems to have lost small pieces of remains. It's one thing to dispose of them in a way that might not seem respectful to the public, it's another to lose them outright.
Can I get a job digging for body parts, Got to work some place in this @!$%# hole..
William D. Zwicharowski, a civilian was overruled / directed?
Time to un-tarnish your name and provide names of @$$holes that pissed / @!$%# on these people with no regard to their families.
These people took an oath to defend this country, as I took that vow too... years ago.
To be scattered like this...... I don't have the words that would not be censored.
How hard is it really to just make a memorial and make it possible to continually add remains. I am sure there are other cremains still "floating" around. And I suspect some people who survived while friends and families did not, might like to take their final resting place with those who went in the 9/11 massacre. Typical military bull feces. this should go all the way to the top--who is the commander in chief? Let BO take the blame --and action.
Just to be clear, your saying Obama should take the blame for something that happened 10 years ago?
I love how Osama, the man who caused pretty much all of this gets a proper burial and prayers, but the victims, get dumped in landfills, that's their "proper burial". I swear this govt gets ,ore corrupt and more despicable every single year.
wow you made me think on that one, good point. So darn afraid of being PC with the religion beliefs with Bin Laden, but no care for their own. I do not know all the details on this though and I hope it was a tragic accident.
Wow, we made it a whole 7 comments before someone said Obama should take the blame... despite the fact that this was happening during Bush's administation and ended the year BEFORE Obama was inaugurated.
Read it again. It was "Osama" being blamed.
read it again dumb-ass. osama not obama!!!! We Burried Osama at sea but thowed our own young men and ladies that servered their country in the TRASH.. :(
To be fair he was probably referring to the comment from "psychoannie" which
does say that Obama should take the blame. And is also the 7th original
comment. No need to call him a dumb-ass.
What??!! The government is made up of liars and cheats and crooks and downright dirty dogs??!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? NO WAY!!!
Typical government. ALL are gutless worms.
I have not trusted our government in a long time and that is hard for me being a veteran. But the last four years have been a constant nightmare. If this is true I am truly ashamed of our so called "government". I wonder how they would like it if someone they love was delegated to a landfill as a final resting place.....truly disgusting and disrespectful.
So President Obama is responsible for dumping 9-11-2001 body parts when they were dumped under President Bush? Please explain.
these remains that were found,were so minuscule and unrecognizable,then cremated,then put in a landfill-given a memorial so whats the problem-sounds like a good job to me. Everybody talks about the heart/soul/memory of the person thats important,but apparently not when you can people fired/lawsuits etc..
Had it been my body parts disposed of this way, I don't really think it would matter. Once I was dead, "respecting" me still would not bring me back. Sorry if any of you lost loved ones and feel differently.
This is a a common problem now days, systems long inplace are being ignored or abused because of the quest to find a better way to do things,the reinventing of the wheel as it were while the crops ruin in the field!
Making a smaller group of people do more with an increased work load leads to mistakes,carelessness and the need to hide any mistakes and keep things going!
Never having a central means for the DOD to clear information and share data,increased work tempo and only the minimal training for the next generation,hard lessons learned not being taught and a learning curve fast becoming a stock market crashing power point!
It happens all the time in the civilian market,stock market crash,Bank closings,housing market, electing Obama,SEC investigations,hospitol maistakes,car wreaks,etc.....poor taining,leadership and a failure to follow up on details all while trying to design a new better wheel cause this.....so once the finger pointing is over what will happen?????
SSDD, Same Stuff Different Day
people are talking like they dumped bodies in the landfill-it was ashes-i dont trust the gov.either,but tell me what else they could do at that point.there was nothing to pickup.
Rest in Peace, or a facsimile there of.
I don't think there was a plain that hit the pentagon so any remains that was burned up was people that worked at the pentagon. and the computers that handled the money that Donald Rumsfeld could not account for the day before 9-11. How much? millions of dollars. there is no way a 757 would fit in that hole and where is the plain? disposing of bodies in this matter is so not right whoever they may be.
When one has a tooth pulled by the dentist. What happens to it? When a person has to have an amputation, what happens to the part amputated, or to the Tonsils? Why are we not concerned on what happens to these unidentifiable body parts?
Arlington Cemetery? That is where our soldiers and Presidents have been buried since after the Civil War, There were 64 People on flight 77 (including the five terrorists). So 64 unidentified body parts minus the ones that were directly hit in the Pentagon. Do you really want to take a chance on burying body parts of the terrorists that did this amonst our hero's at Arlington Cemetary? The could not be DNa'd because they were that damaged so we do not know whos body parts they are.
The Body parts that could be positively Identified were given back to the family members, along with any jewelery, or anything else. We can have our teeth pulled and for all we know he may just flush them down the toilet and we are not concerned that parts of us are in the sewer, infact we pay the Orthodonist hundreds of dollars to flush part of us down the toilet, but unidentifiable remains of 2,998 victims of 9/11 which includes the terrorists, we need gold caskets for each unifentified part with the proper victims name on the unidentifiable part.
We beat the hell out of the authorities even though there was no guide lines at that time on what to do with the remains. Why find any good they do in the military when instead we can point out their faults because the rest of us here are fault free.
In a massive clean up such as that, I would say the body parts that were totally beyond identifying were disposed of in the fastest, cheapest way. I agree with m.gustavson and jay6. I don't want to sound cold but like m.gus said, it wasn't like bodies were being dumped.
So one day someone say's let's have the military take care of this. Cool, that is great we don't have to do anything else except blame them if it does not go as we think it should, but hey our hands are clean. What a bunch of f&^% wads. Why not task the SEC all they do is watch porn. How about the Department Of Energy, what have they done with the trillions they have been given. Better yet tell Congress and the House Of Representitives that it's bring a shovel to work day.
The Pentagon orchestrated the attacks in order to dupe the US into war. Wake up already.
There is such thing as extreme stupidity. Just saying.
Considering the enormity of the task, and the urgency of getting it done, I think this is a subject should be left alone. Painful decisions had to be made, and I am convinced that they did their best under the circumstances. Had most of you who dare make negative comments been in charge, you would have failed miserably. Get real people.
I agree Tyrone, Not that I wouldn't have helped with the cleanup but I am sure there were some hard decisions to be made during the whole process. I am glad I didn't have to make the decisions.
all who was involved with this wheather it military or civilain should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the LAW, but we all know that wont happen because of our SPINLESS judicial system and the prosecutors of this country, and let's not forget the spineless President we have either and our POLITICIANS that are in office.