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Remains Of Some 9/11 Victims Sent To Landfill:  (Aljazeera News – 29th February.)

Pentagon admittance comes after report exposes years of mishandlings at a major US military mortuary. Partial remains from some victims of the September 11 attacks have been dumped in a landfill, the Pentagon has revealed. Tuesday's admittance, the first of its kind, comes after a report that has exposed years of mishandlings at the US military's major mortuary. The portions of remains that ended up at a landfill came from the 2001 attacks on the Pentagon as well as a hijacked airliner that went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on 9/11, according to the report by an independent panel.

The revelation came from a review of the troubled mortuary at Dover Air Force Base, also blamed for mishandling the remains of some troops killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military had acknowledged last year that some portions of remains of fallen soldiers at the Dover mortuary in Delaware had been incinerated and sent to a Virginia landfill, a practice that angered military families and led to a new policy.

Starting in 2008, the military decided to dispose of unidentified cremated remains at sea. But the review released on Tuesday said "several portions of remains from the Pentagon attack and the Shanksville, Pennsylvania, crash site" were also taken to an unidentified landfill. "These cremated portions were then placed in sealed containers that were provided to a biomedical waste disposal contractor," it said.

The report contradicts a 2011 US Air Force account which said there were no records that showed how remains at Dover were handled before 2003. Details of how the 9/11 remains were disposed of were buried as background material in the report, which focused on how to fix management problems at the troubled mortuary.

Retired Army General John Abizaid, who led the review, told reporters it was unclear how many partial remains of September 11 victims were involved. "I don't know that there's a way to find out," he said. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley later on Tuesday said he was not aware of the events. "This is new information to me," Donley said. But Abizaid said he had briefed all the armed services on his reports findings. The review also contained other revelations of botched management at Dover, with officials raising concerns about problems at the mortuary as early as 2002. A May 2002 memo referred to worrisome "tracking problems" with remains. A 2005 investigation confirmed "human remains were misrouted in a fashion constituting dereliction of duty," according to the report In 2006, the remains of victims killed in the crash of a naval training T-29 aircraft were disposed of as "medical waste" instead of a group burial, it said. The Air Force in 2008 had to pay a $25,000 settlement to the wife of a Marine for "mental anguish and medical costs" due to the loss of the Marine's personal effects.

The Air Force had accepted "responsibility and culpability" over the mismanagement of the Dover mortuary but was now working to ensure no more mistakes occur, Donley said. "Our focus is from here forward," he said. Whistle blowers working at the mortuary raised alarm bells, resulting in an investigation last year that found "gross mismanagement" at the facility, with body parts lost in two cases and remains of others mishandled. The review issued on Tuesday called for bolstering oversight, restructuring the chain of command overseeing the mortuary and expanding training for staff. "The chain of command was really not a chain of command," Abizaid said.

Peter Slipper's Clobber Dishonours Diggers: (Daily Telegraph – 28th March.)

Nothing but black robes and white bow tie will suffice when Peter Slipper takes the Speaker's seat in Parliament. But when it comes to honouring our Diggers, it seems a daggy pair of jeans and open- necked shirt will do. While military personnel wore full uniform and veterans pinned their medals proudly to their suit jackets for the dedication of an Iroquois helicopter used in The Battle of Long Tan at Caloundra RSL in Queensland, Mr Slipper raised the hackles of those attending by dressing down.

Dressed down ... Peter Slipper addresses the ceremony

Queensland President of the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia John Smith said veterans were horrified by footage of an out-of-place Mr Slipper wearing jeans at the ceremony on March 16. "It is absolutely disgusting," Mr Smith, a Long Tan veteran said. "Especially coming from him. He wants to wear the Speaker's robe, he was talking about wearing the Speaker's wig and the pomp and the ceremony and he turns up to something like that with veterans and service people in their uniforms and medals and he is there in a pair of jeans and an open neck shirt. I am absolutely horrified."

Mr Smith provided artillery support for Delta Company 6RAR at Long Tan and he said the Iroquois, which is now in the RSL club's memorial garden, was flown in terrible weather conditions and despite warnings, to provide ammunition to Australian soldiers. In his speech Mr Slipper praised the veterans at the event, telling them: It is wonderful to have here today people who served and whose lives were saved by the aircraft now so wonderfully positioned above me.

A spokesman said Mr Slipper had apologised for his outfit to the RSL. "Mr Slipper travelled directly from the Brisbane airport to the dedication of the Iroquois helicopter at the Caloundra RSL," his spokesman said. "Unfortunately, this did not leave time for Mr Slipper to get changed. Mr Slipper thought it was better to be on time and regrets not being able to be dressed in a suit, as he would usually be. "Mr Slipper apologised to the RSL when he arrived."

Footage of the commemoration ceremony was posted on YouTube by Mr Slipper. "A wonderful moment of remembrance and dedication and Pete turns up looking like he is heading off to a BBQ directly after the ceremony," one viewer wrote. Another said: "The vets and the soldiers are correctly wearing medals on what is a ceremonial event. "The Speaker of the house turns up in scruffy jeans looking as if he was on his way to a fishing trip."

Gravestone Of Hitler's Parents Removed: (ABC News – 31st March.)

A descendant of Hitler's father, reportedly an unidentified elderly woman living in Lower Austria, "relinquished her rights and has had it removed", according to a local pastor. "The upkeep of the grave was becoming increasingly difficult as the years went by, and the grave ... kept being misused for gatherings of sympathisers," said Kurt Pittertschatscher, the pastor of Leonding near the northern city of Linz. But Mr Pittertschatscher said that the remains of Hitler's father Alois, a customs official who died in 1903, and his mother Klara, who passed away four years later, had not been exhumed.

The Upper Austrian Network Against Fascism pressure group, which had campaigned for the tombstone to be taken away, said the removal on Wednesday was a "welcome success." Hitler was born about 100 kilometres away in 1889 in a village later annexed to Braunau am Inn but the family moved nine years later to Leonding, where Alois had bought a house. The house where the family lived is still standing. Hitler himself was only believed to have visited the grave once or twice after taking power in 1933.

It is not the first time in recent years that a grave that has become something of a shrine for the extreme right has been removed. Last July the remains of Hitler's one-time deputy Rudolf Hess, who parachuted into Britain in 1941 on an apparent one-man peace mission without the Fuehrer’s approval, were exhumed in the small town of Wunsiedel in southern Germany.

Rising Sun Of Bayonets Or Jam? (The Canberra Times – 18th April.)

Jon Howse grandson of Sir Neville Howse the first Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross with a mini sheet of the new Rising Sun Stamps at Canberra GPO.

Rising Sun of bayonets or jam?

Although the famous Rising Sun badge (worn on our soldiers' slouch hats and berets) is a semi‑sacred icon now, it may take its name from eye‑catching labels on tins of jam of yesteryear.

Whatever the Rising Sun's origins, it is commemorated now, with Anzac Day looming, in a set of five commemorative stamps launched yesterday by Australia Post. Jon Howse, great grandson of Sir Neville Howse, Australia's first recipient of the Victoria Cross (for a feat of extreme derring‑do against the Boers in 1900), was present for yesterday's unpretentious launch (no speeches) on a breeze‑swept pavement outside the GPO in Civic.

Few Australians will ever lick the backs of the new stamps (for snail mail is slithering slowly into oblivion and Australia Post says that most households will be lucky to receive one letter a day by the end of this decade) but collectors will prize them. They are handsome stamps, each of 60c value, showing five different designs the Rising Sun has embraced since its introduction in about 1904. The jam-label legend is not well known, but with Anzac Day almost upon us, it is too delightful to ignore. It is one of those legends one would hate to see spoiled by any facts a meddling historian might come up with.

It may be that the first Rising Sun badge was designed after a trophy shield made of bayonets displayed above the office door of an Australian general. The badge was first issued to soldiers at the Boer War. At that time the closest neighbour of Victoria Barracks in Melbourne was Hoadley's jam factory, which produced a Rising Sun brand. Great quantities of this jam were sent to sustain Australians in South Africa during the Boer War. The label on the tins of Rising Sun jam featured, of course, a spectacular rising sun.

Its resemblance to their badge (projecting rays of sun looking very much like the fan‑like display of projecting bayonets) moved the men to give their badge the name Rising Sun.