Thursday 24 April 2008

    Lt. Col. Billy Hall, one of the most senior officers to be killed in the Iraq
war, was laid to rest yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery. It's hard to
escape the conclusion that the Pentagon doesn't want you to know that.

    The family of 38-year-old Hall, who leaves behind two young daughters and two
stepsons, gave their permission for the media to cover his Arlington burial
- a decision many grieving families make so that the nation will learn about
their loved ones' sacrifice. But the military had other ideas, and they arranged
the Marine's burial yesterday so that no sound, and few images, would make it
into the public domain.

    That's a shame, because Hall's story is a moving reminder that the war in Iraq,
forgotten by much of the nation, remains real and present for some. Among those
unlikely to forget the war: 6-year-old Gladys and 3-year-old Tatianna. The rest
of the nation, if it remembers Hall at all, will remember him as the 4,011th
American service member to die in Iraq, give or take, and the 419th to be buried
at Arlington. Gladys and Tatianna will remember him as Dad.

    The two girls were there in Section 60 yesterday beside grave 8,672 - or at
least it appeared that they were from a distance. Journalists were held 50 yards
from the service, separated from the mourning party by six or seven rows of
graves, and staring into the sun and penned in by a yellow rope. Photographers
and reporters pleaded with Arlington officials.

    "There will be a yellow rope in the face of the next of kin," protested
one photographer with a large telephoto lens.

    "This is the best shot you're going to get," a man from the cemetery
replied.

    "We're not going to be able to hear a thing," a reporter argued.

    "Mm-hmm," an Arlington official answered.

    The distance made it impossible to hear the words of Chaplain Ron Nordan, who,
an official news release said, was leading the service. Even a reporter who
stood surreptitiously just behind the mourners could make out only the familiar
strains of the Lord's Prayer. Whatever Chaplain Nordan had to say about Hall's
valor and sacrifice were lost to the drone of airplanes leaving National Airport.

    It had the feel of a throwback to Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, when the military
cracked down on photographs of flag-draped caskets returning home from the war.
Rumsfeld himself was exposed for failing to sign by hand the condolence letters
he sent to the next of kin. His successor, Robert Gates, has brought some glasnost
to the Pentagon, but the military funerals remain tightly controlled. Even when
families approve media coverage for a funeral, the journalists are held at a
distance for the pageantry - the caisson, the band, the firing party, "Taps,"
the presenting of the flag - then whisked away when the service itself begins.

    Nor does the blocking of funeral coverage seem to be the work of overzealous
bureaucrats. Gina Gray, Arlington's new public affairs director, pushed vigorously
to allow the journalists more access to the service yesterday - but she was
apparently shot down by other cemetery officials.

    Media whining? Perhaps. But the de facto ban on media at Arlington funerals
fits neatly with an effort by the administration to sanitize the war in Iraq.
That, in turn, has contributed to a public boredom with the war. A Pew Research
Center poll earlier this month found that 14 percent of Americans considered
Iraq the news story of most interest - less than half the 32 percent hooked
on the presidential campaign and barely more than the 11 percent hooked on the
raid of a polygamist compound in Texas.

    On March 29, a week before the raid on the polygamists' ranch, William G. Hall
was riding from his quarters to the place in Fallujah where he was training
Iraqi troops when his vehicle hit an improvised explosive device. He was taken
into surgery, but he died from his injuries. The Marines awarded him a posthumous
promotion from major to lieutenant colonel.

    Newspapers in Seattle, where Hall had lived, printed an e-mail the fallen fighter
had sent his family two days before his death.

    "I am sure the first question in each of your minds is my safety, and
I am happy to tell you that I'm safe and doing well," he wrote, giving
his family a hopeful picture of events in Iraq. "I know most of what you
hear on the news about Iraq is not usually good news and that so many are dying
over here," the e-mail said. "That is true to an extent but it does
not paint the total picture, and violence is not everywhere throughout the country.
So please don't associate what you see on the news with all of Iraq.

    "Love you and miss you," he wrote. "I'll write again soon."

    Except, of course, that he didn't. And yesterday, his family walked slowly
behind the horse-drawn caisson to section 60. In the front row of mourners,
one young girl trudged along, clinging to a grown-up's hand; another child found
a ride on an adult's shoulders.

    It was a moving scene - and one the Pentagon shouldn't try to hide from the
American public.