Richard Somers was appointed a midshipman in April, 1797. He served on the USS United States in the Quasi-War in France, and captained the Nautilus in the Med, subsequently leading a division of gunboats that repeatedly attacked Tripoli. The Tripolitan corsairs had captured the nation’s attention during the Barbary Wars, and eventually Somers – serving under Stephen Decatur – volunteered to command the fire ship Intrepid, destined for the pirate fleet hard by a fortress in Tripoli. In an inherently hazardous mission, Somers and his crew of twelve volunteers died when their ship exploded prematurely. Their bodies floated ashore, were feasted on by dogs and dragged through the streets. They lie now in an ill-kept mass grave in the Libyan capital. A capital, which – for the first time in decades – is well-disposed to the United States.
Their families want to bring their remains home, but Navy is fighting the effort.
This, I don’t get.
The Tripolitan Monument, Annapolis
Sometimes what the Navy brass does defies belief.
Paul
“This I don’t get.”
Easy explanation: The same prevailing mentality that thinks it hunky-dory to name fighting ships after flawed and ethically compromised living politicians who happen to be ex-military or dead leftist political “activists”/”organizers” who served but nonetheless openly despised the armed services.
How about if the Navy strips the Murtha and Chavez of their names and names them “Intrepid” and “Somers”?
“Somers” has a bad odor associated with it. There was an USS Somers, a brig, I believe, which may or may not have had an actual mutiny aboard. There were some hangings, and rumors of homo behavior.
The USN, it seems, has always been quite twitchily mental about the homos. The RN was more rational: If we catch you in the act, we hang you; so please be discreet and don’t make us take official notice!
One of the supposed mutineers who was hung and buried at sea was the son of then Secretary of War Johb C. Spencer.
One of the supposed mutineers who was hung and buried at sea was the son of then Secretary of War John C. Spencer.
Damn, a double tap. At least the second one has the name typed correctly.
WH may be afraid they might offend their friends ..’the current’ hosts In Libya….or…Families may not be registered Dems..
That gets my vote…..
I’ll second
If we can bring John Paul Jones home then by God we can bring these heroes home as well. We need to get Congressmen involved to bring some scrutiny on this decision process and get it corrected.
Was that here I read about this last year? This is knocking around in my head as something I’ve questioned in the past and… I think it was rumbling here on simmer last year.
I didn’t get it then, I don’t get it now, and I take some solace that the smart people here don’t get it either.
The only thing I can figure is that the Navy is being cowardly and thinking they will be opening Pandora’s box and all the families of the heroes we have buried overseas from WWI and WWII will want their remains brought home too. And they need to grow a set and not play the what if game, if that is the case, and bring these men home, where they belong. They’ve been on enemy soil for too long.
Bou, there was quite a discussion over at CDR Salamander’s place last month:
http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2011/11/navy-abandons-its-dead.html
It was longer ago than that. I swear it was here. I need to search. Because I think it was then that I realized Marianne had lost her beloved in WWII.
I found it. (I’m using Lex’s HTML tag cheat, let’s see if I get it right. Probability is very low…)
And I don’t like how I worded it then. I wasn’t strong enough in my belief… they belong at home. Perhaps I’m just stronger in how I feel about it now…
Dang it. Fail. Whatever. Click on all that blue and you’ll find it. The tag didn’t close.
Yes there was a piece on this incident referring to the rather shabby final resting place of these brave ancient US mariners. I think Lex raised the idea that a noble return to American soil might be possible, post hostilities, rather than leave them in the soil of a nation that despised
the West. As for the `fear` of thousands of relatives demanding the repatriation of the entire Omaha Beach cemetary, I agree with your drift on this and I don’t think they have to worry as i believe it is all about how these pieces of hallowed ground are cared for and revered by the nation where they lie. Having visited war cemetaries in France and Commonwealth War Graves in the UK, I can assure any relatives and descendants that there can be no finer resting place for those brothers in arms who fought and fell together.
And I think that is the distinct difference in my head. On Normandy, our heroes are not on enemy soil. Their deaths were not in vain and they are looked after and remembered for what they did.
Tripoli… that is a different story. That is enemy soil. Bring them home. I would be PISSED if that were my Dad…
A twit making an argument on the cost of this. That’s all.
What I can’t figure out is why McCain dropped it. He was originally supportive of bringing them home and then punted for some reason. Deeply, deeply disappointing. He could have gotten it done. I guess he didn’t want to spend the political capital.
…There is some evidence that Qadaffi may have had the bodies exhumed and desecrated some years ago – but even if that is the case, the USN owes it to LT Somers and his crew to find out what happened.
Mike
McCain is just being McCain. Which means the man is barely sane. It harks back to his time in the Hanoi Hilton. Most former inmates of that hell hole have mental health issues (one retired officer was far less, err, sensitive about it than I’m being).
That a Navy spokeswoman dissed the families was utterly unforgivable.
We talked about this over at XBradTC’s place a couple months back.
can’t upset muhammedans by asking them to return the remains, they might think you don’t trust them…
My Dad was in the service during the 1950′s and 1960′s when we had an Air Force Base in Libya. That base had dependents on it and it had a cemetery on also. This is relevant because Dad lives right down the street from Dover AFB and it seems to me that sometime in the last 18 months, the Libyan Government under Col Qaddafi quietly repatriated a bunch of the remains from this cemetery. Dad was one of a number of vets that showed up at the cemetery for an internment ceremony. It was a tragedy to him that so many of these were the remains of little kids (infant mortality) and they couldn’t locate any family members. (really sad story).
So I know that we have just recently recovered remains from Libya, and this would be a good time to do it again.
Anyway, if the US can go to the effort of sending MIA recovery teams into Vietnamese jungles, then we can send a team into Libya and get these men home. We are not the British, we do not bury our men where they drop. We get them back.
We can always place a casket underneath the memorial at the Naval Academy. For what it’s worth, I think they’d be happy there. I have a couple of relatives that went down on the Maine and we used to go to the memorial at the seawall and look at their names on the brass plaque.
We have military cemeteries spread from Mexico to Europe. There are probably some in the SW Pacific as well – I just don’t know where. Most of them are in the vicinity of where the troops fell. The exceptions are Japan, Germany and Italy who were enemies.
Seems to me this midshipman did his duty and has discharged his obligations to his chain of command in the Navy.
Time for his descendants to tell Navy to piss off and get the State Department in on the matter.
The only foreign soil we have ever asked for has been enough to bury our dead fighting there. If they cannot, will not, or prefer not to have them there, it should be a standing order that the position of the State Department is to bring those remains home for re-burial at family preference.
As the old saying goes, we send our best and brightest forward to defend foreign lands, and all we want in return is enough room to bury them honorably. If that is too much, we can take care of it ourselves, thanks.
– Max
I made my position clear at Sal’s, Those men were UNITED STATES NAVY Sailors, who died in action with the enemy. They get brought home at Government expense, that is where the discussion starts and ends.
I concur. What I wrote above was just my feeble attempt to explain the inexplicable.
There are no explanations, just excuses. Not even good excuses.
That is the most concise explanation thus far. No more is required. Thank You.