Dead U.S. soldiers come home to Delaware air base

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del., Aug 7 (Reuters) - When the cargo planes land at this air base on the coast of Delaware, people nearby stand at attention to honor the dead.

Fifty-three soldiers have been killed in guerilla-style attacks in Iraq since President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat there on May 1. Since March 20, when the U.S.-led war on Iraq began, an additional 114 U.S. soldiers have been killed in hostile action.

This quiet base about a mile (1.6 km) inland from Delaware Bay is where all the American soldiers who die in Iraq come home.

Dover Air Force Base has the largest Department of Defense port mortuary and the only one in the United States. Since the Vietnam War, wartime casualties have come through here. snip

Since March, when the U.S.-led war against Iraq began, the staff at the Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs have been at their brutal but delicate task nonstop, with 10- to 12- hour days and rotations sometimes without days off for weeks.

"What I tell my family is, if you see reports of fatalities, then that means we're working," said Karen Giles, who heads the mortuary.

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Pentagon Keeps Return of Iraqi War Dead from Media

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon has no plans to allow media access to a U.S. Air Force base receiving the bodies of American soldiers killed in Iraq, a Defense Department spokeswoman said on Friday.

The remains of 18 soldiers killed in the Iraq campaign and six who died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan have arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware since Tuesday. Each time, a military chaplain has uttered prayers and an honor guard has carried flag-draped aluminum coffins to waiting vehicles.

In some past conflicts, news cameras and reporters were allowed to record the transfer of soldiers' remains at the Dover base, which houses the U.S. military's largest morgue.

But a Defense Department spokeswoman said a policy in place since the 1991 Gulf War shields the return of war dead from the media spotlight and encourages family members not to attend. She said the policy was adopted at the urging of soldiers' families.

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