36 million dollar contract to let the bodies of veterans rot

[appleannie1]

Product/Service Memorials: Cemeterial & Mortuary Eq & Sup
Dollar Amount of Defense Contracts Awarded for this Product/Service from 2000 to 2008 $36,112,844
Number of Defense Contracts Awarded for this Product/Service from 2000 to 2008 278


2008 63/$12,382,866
2007 27/$2,050,285
2006 34/$2,060,564
2005 49/$8,721,657
2004 32/$4,500,570
2003 32/$3,398,494
2002 19/$1,505,923
2001 8/$720,510
2000 14/$771,975
http://www.governmentcontractswon.com/department/defense/memorials_cemeterial_mortuary_eq_sup.asp?yr=07

FAIRFAX, Va. — A man who says his father’s body was left for months to rot in the garage of a Falls Church funeral home is asking for a criminal investigation.

Richard Morgan Jr. of Harrisonburg hand-delivered a letter Monday to the office of Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond Morrogh, arguing that the National Funeral Home neglected the remains of his father, Maj. Richard Morgan, so badly that it constitutes a felony under state law.

“Placing my father’s corpse in a garage, unrefrigerated, cannot be characterized as anything but willful and intentional,” Morgan wrote in his letter, noting that defilement of a corpse is a felony under Virginia law.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/04/ap_veterans_bodies_040709/

Ronald Federici's father, a retired Army colonel, had just died, and Federici wanted to escort his body to Demaine Funeral Home in Alexandria. But the driver who came to pick up the remains at the hospital said he wasn't going to Demaine, he was going to some other place.
Upset and confused, Federici followed the van driver, who pulled up to National Funeral Home in Falls Church. When the white garage door opened at the edge of a cemetery just off Lee Highway, Federici said, the foul odor of decomposition smacked him in the face. A body lay on a gurney in the garage near a rack holding coffins, and the walk-in cooler where his father was to be left was filled with exposed bodies.

"The stench was horrific," Federici, 53, said about the cooler. "Bodies were laying buck naked all over the place. There was no dignity whatsoever. It was disgusting, degrading and humiliating."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/04/AR2009040402976.html?hpid=topnews

Yeah Bush, you sure honored the fallen and the men that had more courage in their toes than you ever had in your whole body.

[csziggy]

1. Army Times link is now dead; Marine Corps Times has it - for now

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/04/ap_veterans_bodies_040709/

Service Corporation International has quite a history of mismanagement:

In the late 1990s, SCI was involved in a controversy involving alleged violations of Texas State embalming laws. The proceedings took a political slant due to Robert Waltrip’s friendship with the family of then-governor George W. Bush and Waltrip's campaign contributions to various members of the Bush family..<11>

Referred to as "Funeralgate" or "Formaldegate" in the media, the controversy was widely publicized when Eliza May—a director with the Texas Funeral Service Commission (TFSC)—was fired while investigating SCI. May alleged in a civil suit that she was fired because she refused to halt her investigation, despite pressure to do so from Governor Bush. Other TFSC employees indicated she was fired because her colleagues had lost confidence in her ability and because she was using her authority inappropriately.

May's lawyers subpoenaed President Bush to testify at the trial,<12> but Texas Judge John K. Dietz threw out the subpoena on the grounds that the then-governor was not in a position to have enough specialized information to require his involvement.<13>

The lawsuit was settled in 2001 for more than $200,000. SCI and the state of Texas were required to jointly pay the decision.<14> On January 23, 2004, the TFSC fined SCI an additional $21,000 for administrative penalties.<14>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Corporation_International

The SCI name rang a bell with me since after Katrina, Kenyon International Emergency Services, a subsidiary of SCI was hired by FEMA to handle bodies, even though local black owned funeral homes were completely cut out. They charged over $12,000 per body and missed numerous bodies in areas they were supposed to have cleared. (Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to Reclaim, Rebuild and Revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast
By Robert Bullard, Beverly Wright) Kenyon also got contracts for handling remains at the World Trade Center and after the tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

Lots more connections between SCI, Kenyon, Bush, FEMA and Halliburton, but I am too tired to dig them out.

[appleannie1]

2. I know the Bush connections are strong and that is how they got the government contracts

Things like this really piss me off, especially since Dems and liberals in general were labled as not be patriotic during the Bush years. At least we bury our dead with honor. They have no respect for anything except money.

[csziggy]

3. The Wiki article gives everyone a heads up about how many funeral homes SCI/Kenyon owns

And talks about how they hide their connections to those homes. I wonder how many of those have been involved with various scandals mishandling human remains in the last few decades? I really want to make sure whoever I choose to cremate me is NOT one of their flock!