by Justin Nobel

In 1943 U.S. Marines fought fiercely with the Japanese on the tiny Pacific island of Tarawa. The remains of hundreds of U.S. soldiers are still there, buried beneath the sand in mass graves and across Southeast Asia, more than 1,700 soldiers are still missing from the Vietnam War. The Department of Defense’s Prisoner of War and Missing Personnel Office is working arduously to recover them.

Thomas Rice’s chopper went down deep in the jungles of South Vietnam just before dawn on December 28, 1965. Several missions retraced his route but the helicopter was never found. His younger brother, James, also in the Army, asked to be stationed in the same spot, where he continued the search himself. In December of 1966, Rice was declared dead and the following May a memorial service was held for him, sans body.

The search for the crash site was resumed in 1993 by the Department of Defense’s Prisoner of War and Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) but came up empty-handed. Then four years ago two Vietnamese villagers admitted to having shot down a chopper in the mid-1960s in the same area where Rice’s craft had disappeared; a team of Defense Department officials trekked to the presumed crash site. Remains were recovered and identified and last month Rice and his comrades were finally laid to rest but there are still more than 1,700 American soldiers unaccounted for from the Vietnam War, according to DPMO stats. The lost bodies lie somewhere in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and China. Of the 1,332 American soldiers still unaccounted for in Vietnam, 614 are in a ‘no further pursuit’ status, reads a DPMO website. “We have conclusive evidence the individual perished,” says the site, “but do not believe it possible to recover his remains.” Read the rest of this entry »

by Justin Nobel

The Westboro Baptist Church has protested more than 42,000 events in the last two decades, including more than 200 funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court announced they will hear a case involving the father of a Marine who says the group caused him emotional distress by picketing his son's funeral.

Pastor Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church have protested the Academy Awards, gay pride parades, museum exhibitions, synagogues, the 2008 Sichuan China earthquake and more than 200 funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They gather outside memorial services waving provocative colored signs that read “God Hates Fags”, “America Is Doomed” and “Thank God For Dead Soldiers” and taunt mourners with chants and jeers.

The Topeka Kansas-based church has only about seventy members, nearly all of them related to Phelps, yet they have caused quite a stir. Patriot Guard Riders, a nationwide network of motorcyclists that congregate at soldier funerals to keep the peace, formed solely to counter the Phelps’s and the family has had several police confrontations and minor court appearances. Earlier this week they were issued a major one; the Supreme Court announced they will hear the case of whether the father of a Marine killed in Iraq can sue Westboro protesters for the emotional distress they caused him by picketing his sons’ funeral. Read the rest of this entry »

by Justin Nobel

"The Ballad of Narayama", a 1983 Japanese film by director Shohei Imamura, refers to a custom called ubasute, in which an elderly relative is carried to a remote place and left to die of dehydration and exposure. The practice, couched in legend, is reminiscent of the infamous "death panels" that critics exaggeratedly claim President Obama wants to institute into his healthcare reform bill.

The elderly are a burden and should bow out, saving society money.

Critics of President Obama’s healthcare reform claim this is what was meant by a section of a proposed bill entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation.” Advance care planning practitioners were called “death panels” by critics and a media volcano erupted.

Proponents of the bill argue that the disputed passage was actually intended to inform elders about end-of-life issues, such as access to a good hospice and how to create a living will.

At issue is the idea of senicide, or the abandonment to death of the elderly. The concept may seem outrageous to citizens of this country, but in some spots on the planet it’s a time-honored tradition, or at least a time-honored legend.

In the Dinaric Mountains of Serbia, lapot refers to the legendary practice of killing one’s parents or other elderly family members once they have become a financial burden. “In the area of Homolje, Zajecar, and Negotin Krajina, the ritual existed and was practiced on a large scale until the end of the nineteenth century, and even in the early twentieth century,” reads a passage from Branimir Anzulovic’s history of the region, “Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide”.

Elderly were killed with sticks and sometimes with rocks or an axe. Usually, the victim’s children committed the act. In a grisly passage from Heavenly Serbia, Anzulovic quotes an earlier lapot text: “In Krepoljin and some other places in eastern Serbia, members of the household used to prepare cornmush, put it on the old man’s or woman’s head, and strike it with an axe until the person died. They did it this way to make it appear that the mush was the killer, not themselves.” Read the rest of this entry »