Military Ceremony for Louisiana National Guardsmen Killed in Iraq

we're allowed to see thousands of dead bloated bodies from the tsunami, but the pentagon doesn't want us to see the dead military...interesting.

photos as well.

"The Pentagon told the Guard to keep out the media, but the families of all six soldiers wanted to share the sad homecoming with the world."

Military Ceremony for Louisiana National Guardsmen Killed in Iraq

>>> Six National Guardsmen from Southeast Louisiana were killed by a roadside explosive on 6 January 2005. Their remains, in flag-draped coffins, arrived in Belle Chasse, near New Orleans, six days later.

The Pentagon told the Guard to keep out the media, but the families of all six soldiers wanted to share the sad homecoming with the world. Obeying the family's wishes instead of the Pentagon's, the Guard allowed the press - including CBS News and the Associated Press - to film and photograph the arrival ceremony.

The soldiers:

* Sgt. Armand "Luke" Frickey
* Sgt. 1st Class Kurt Comeaux
* Staff Sgt. Chritopher Babin
* Sgt. Huey Fassbender III
* Sgt. Warren Murphy
* Sgt. Bradley Bergeron

CBS News video | Associated Press article | AFP article

Related: Photos of Military Coffins (Battlefield and Astronaut Fatalaties) at Dover Air Force Base | Military Coffins: The Photos You're Not Supposed to See

Below: Associated Press photos by Bill Haber

Below: Stillframes from story broadcast by CBS News on "The Early Show"

Caskets of Six Soldier Arrive in Louisiana

Associated Press, Thursday January 13, 5:08 AM

Relatives sobbed Wednesday at the sight of flag-draped caskets containing the bodies of six Louisiana National Guardsmen killed by a bomb in Iraq.

One by one, the six caskets were removed from an Air Force cargo plane and loaded into separate hearses as family members watched from a hangar at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base near New Orleans.

The six were killed Jan. 6 in the first of two deadly bombings that took the lives of eight members of the 256th Infantry Brigade of the Louisiana National Guard. In both attacks, bombs blew up heavily armored vehicles.

There were no speeches.

"They trained together, they fought together, they went to war together, they died together. The families wanted them to come home together," Hunt Downer, assistant adjutant general in the National Guard, told reporters before the plane arrived.

The six who returned were Sgt. Bradley Bergeron, 25, Staff Sgt. Christopher Babin, 27, and Sgt. Armand Frickey, 21, all of Houma; Sgt. Warren Murphy, 29, of Marrero, Sgt. Huey Fassbender III, 24, of LaPlace, and Sgt. 1st Class Kurt Comeaux, 34, of Raceland.

All but Comeaux received posthumous promotions.

A soldier from New York also was killed in the blast, which military authorities said was probably set off by insurgents using a remote electronic detonator. Brig. Gen. John Basilica, commander of the 256th Brigade, has said the soldiers were on a mission to suppress the insurgents' ability to launch rocket and mortar attacks.

Four days after the six were killed, two other Louisiana guardsmen died in a similar attack. They were Sgt. Robert Sweeney III of Pineville and Staff Sgt. Bill Manuel of Kinder. Their bodies have not yet been returned.

Pentagon Ban on Filming Coffins Defied
Agence France-Presse, Thursday 13 January 2005, 10:08

A US National Guard unit has defied a Pentagon request that sought to stop television news crews filming six flag-draped soldiers' coffins arriving in Louisiana.

The Pentagon has barred US media from filming the coffins of US service members arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

But the Louisiana National Guard allowed a CBS news crew on Wednesday to film the arrival of six soldiers' coffins at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Belle Chasse, near New Orleans, Louisiana.

Despite the Pentagon request, Lieutenant-Colonel Pete Schneider, a spokesman for the Louisiana National Guard told CBS: "What we thought was, we're going to do what the family asked us to do."

Footage broadcast by CBS showed an honour guard carrying the soldiers' flag-draped coffins out of an aircraft, watched by grieving families, to six waiting hearses.

The six soldiers, who had served in the Louisiana National Guard, all died last Thursday after their armoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

It was the largest number of US troops killed in a single attack since last month's bombing in a military mess hall at a base near Mosul that killed 14 US soldiers.