Caroline May
The Daily Caller
11/10/2011
Veterans groups are one step closer to achieving the long-held goal of repatriating the remains of 13 sailors killed and buried in Tripoli 207 years ago during the war with the Barbary Pirates.
Nevada Republican Sen. Dean Heller, Arkansas Republican Sen. John Boozman and Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown have introduced legislation that would put the force of law behind the USO’s heralded motto “Until Everyone Comes Home.”
“Our nation has a responsibility to make sure that any fallen member of the Armed Forces is treated with respect,” said Heller. “For more than two hundred years, these sailors have laid to rest in a cemetery on foreign soil. It’s past time that we give these men a proper military burial in the country they died defending.”
The three senators’ bill would require the Defense Department to exhume the remains of the sailors, killed in the explosion of the USS Intrepid, from Tripoli; identify them; and send them to veterans cemeteries closest to the deceased sailors’ living family members.
If the remains cannot be identified, they would be interred at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia…
…American Legion spokesman Marty Callaghan told The Daily Caller that with Gadhafi dead and a new government in transition, now would be a good time to bring these men home.
“It seems like a good time to really push after more than two centuries,” Callaghan said. “And there have been several attempts through the years to try to bring these heroes home, and always something has gotten in the way.”
Callaghan explained that some of the sailors are currently buried in Martyrs’ Square, and others are buried in a poorly kept Protestant cemetery which has been used as a burial site for diplomats through the centuries…
