Comedy or Tragedy?? Maybe both??

[Arsenal VG-33]

Today I witnessed an incredibly outrageous scene, something only Eugene Ionesco could have written!

I'm in the local cemetery with others to watch the Memorial Day ceremonies. Speeches, music, veterans, and etc. You get the idea. Anyway, there was also a burial today, of a deceased veteran who fought in Korea. Prayers, more speeches, AmLegions and VFW guys there at attention, the Reverand and so forth. SOooooo.......when it's all said and done, the flag is removed from the coffin and the honor guard folds it up into a neat triangle and presents it to the son of the deceased man. The honor guard has only barely finished saluting the son, when a sibling sister jumps up screaming that SHE should have recieved the flag. This immediately results in all the family members jumping up and screaming at eachother. Obviously a torn family. Guess what happens next.......

......the sister grabs part of the flag and attempts to tear it away for herself. The flag becomes undone and unfurls as the son holds on to his end. EVERYBODY else, who is witnessing this is shocked beyond belief. So they're pulling and tugging when someone is heard yelling, "yer gonna rip the flag!!". The son lets go of his end and the sister reels backward, banging onto the casket and almost knocking it off the hoist. She then fell down into the vault! I don't think she was injured, but she got out and went right back to fighting with the other family members.

I'm not sure where this family is from, but they're by far the biggest group of dopes I have ever seen at a funeral on a Memorial Day. Right now a friend of mine who was also there is trying to find out if anyone caught the whole scene on camera. The VFW and AmLegions guys were royally pissed and they just left. Had the gun salute squad had real bullets, I think they would have used them.

Unbelievable!!

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Almost a comedy and sad as a special day was ruined. The sister is an idiot and in reality has no respect for her deceased father, his funeral and the meaning behind it.

 

[Amsel]

Tragic, especially because they probably already bred.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Amazing. As soon as you see the most idiotic thing in life, somebody comes by and tops it.

 

[Thorlifter]

Echo what Joe said! Unbelievable.

 

[GrauGeist]

The first thought that crossed my mind when I read this, is that those idiots don't deserve to have their father's flag. But the reality is, he served so that they are entitled to it, as undeserving as they may be.

I grew up around a house full of veterans (a full bird Captain and Non-Coms), and it's a dang good thing they weren't there to witness that.

An example would be when I was a kid, my Uncle Earl, retired Chief (USN - WWII Pacific Korea, USGC - Cold War) dressed down a bunch of hippies that had a U.S. flag for curtains in thier VW bus in a supermarket parking lot. He made the hippies fold the flag and put it away with respect. I suppose the Hippies could have objected, but our ancestry is primarily northern European (German Scottish) and he looked like he meant what he said!

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

Christ, what a bunch of wankers.

 

[Wayne Little]

Friggin' unbelievable....you called it right Joe!

 

[Airframes]

The really sad thing is, the family involved probably didn't see anything wrong in what they were doing. I sometimes wonder (as no doubt generations before me, at a similar age to me now, have done.), what has happened to basic values and respect in the world. Browsing this forum reinforces (for me) the fact that there are still decent, 'normal' people around, thank heaven.

 

[Cota1992]

I worked as a grave digger...I'm not surprised. Grief can bring up all kinds of things. Things get skewed. I've seen and been in the middle of worse.
My first children's funeral the mother went off on me and started calling me everything in the book for taking her baby away from her as I went to carry her child in it's little coffen with a coworker down to the hole. (Which is why a lot of cemeteries encourage people to leave before the lowering and burial begins.
It wasn't easy- but I knew she wasn't yelling at me as a person, it was the grief coming out.
As bad as the above story with the flag sounds, it's not to bad on a scale with other thing's I've seen...
Art

 

[Gnomey]

Joe's called it right, terrible thing to happen. But then as Art says, grief does different things to different people.

 

[Colin1]

Christ, what a bunch of wankers.

An unusual turn of phrase for an American!
We're not teaching you bad habits over here, are we?

 

[evangilder]

I think that these folks made their deceased relative roll in his grave, before he even got there. It's a shame that this kind of thing happened and I can't say I blame the VFW and AL for leaving.

 

[Burmese Bandit]

"...Had the gun salute squad had real bullets, I think they would have used them."

I would.

 

[RabidAlien]

I'm speechless. Holy crap, I spent six years defending idiots like this????

 

[Vassili Zaitzev]

An unusual turn of phrase for an American!
We're not teaching you bad habits over here, are we?

Hm, must be my English side showing.

 

[Njaco]

Un-freakin-believable! I thought something similar would happen when my dad died as my siblings are an odd lot. But it was the one time we all came together for a purpose. Like Joe said, no respect or understanding.

 

[fly boy]

the hell is with that

 

[Messy1]

Definitely sad. Someone in my family would have beat the crap out of me if that would have been me! I hope someone took those tow out to the proverbial woodshed after they left to cemetery!

 

[Matt308]

Too bad there wasn't a video. I would love to have this broadcast around with world with the names of those idiots prominently displayed.

On second thought no. All that would do is embarrass me as an American. People who act like that have no shame.