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Free speech trumps Pentagon rules

A military contractor fired two cargo workers responsible for a photograph of flag-draped coffins of U.S. soldiers that appeared on a newspaper's front page.

Maytag Aircraft Corp. fired Tami Silicio, 50, and her husband, David Landry, because they ''violated Department of Defense and company policies by working together'' to take and publish the photograph, company president William Silva said in a news release Thursday.

The firing was first reported Thursday in The Seattle Times, which published the April 7 photo on Sunday.

But now, after a Freedom of Information Act request by thememoryhole.org, similar pictures are flooding the Internet, and soon, I’m sure, newspapers everywhere.

The Pentagon lost its tight control over the images of coffins returning from Iraq as about 350 such images were released under the Freedom of Information Act and a Seattle newspaper published a similar photo taken by a military contractor.

After Dover Air Force Base, the main port for returning remains, released hundreds of government photos of the ceremonies, the Defense Department ordered yesterday that no more photographs be released. In addition, two employees for defense contractor Maytag Aircraft were fired after the Pentagon complained about a photo of flag-draped caskets taken by one of them that appeared in the Seattle Times.

In March 2003, on the eve of war in Iraq, the Pentagon ordered an end to all media coverage of ceremonies for the returning remains of soldiers killed overseas. Although Dover already had such a policy, the Pentagon action enforced a military-wide ban on images of flag-draped caskets that dated to late 2000 but had not been followed.

With few exceptions, the ban had remained in force until recent days. But last week, about 350 photos from Dover were released under a Freedom of Information Act request by Russ Kick, a First Amendment advocate who runs a Web site called the Memory Hole (www.thememoryhole.org). Dover recommended that Kick's request be denied, but officials at Air Mobility Command headquarters at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois authorized the release on appeal. After Kick posted the photos, they appeared on other Web sites, including the Drudge Report.

The sudden spread yesterday of the Dover photos of flag-draped caskets returning from Iraq came a day after Tami Silicio and her husband and co-worker, David Landry, were fired for the photo she took at Kuwait International Airport of caskets in an aircraft. The photo was published Sunday on the front page of the Seattle Times.

"We have terminated two employees in Kuwait who violated Department of Defense and company policy by working together to photograph and publish the flag-draped caskets of our servicemen and women being returned to the United States," said William Silva, president of Maytag Aircraft, the Colorado Springs-based military contractor that employed Silicio and her husband.
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Although photographs of flag-draped caskets returning from overseas fighting were common in the 1980s and 1990s, the Bush administration has enforced the ban on such images, saying it reflects families' wishes. Critics of the policy said the administration is trying to airbrush the realities of war.