Judge Rules Against Slain Soldier's Family

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SLAIN_SOLDIER_PHOTO?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- A judge has ruled against relatives of an Oklahoma soldier slain in Iraq who had sued Harper's magazine over its publication of a photograph of his body in an open casket.

Kyle Brinlee's father and grandfather had claimed the publication of the photo was "so extreme and outrageous as to go beyond all bounds of decency." But in his ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge Frank Seay noted that the photo had been taken at a funeral attended by about 1,200 people, including Oklahoma's governor.

"If the plaintiffs wanted to grieve in private they should not have held a public funeral and had a section reserved for the press," Seay wrote.

Brinlee, a carpentry and masonry specialist with the Army's 120th Combat Engineer Battalion, was killed by a homemade bomb and was Oklahoma's first National Guardsman killed in combat since the Korean War.

when I saw that headline I thought "well, a soldier's family is getting shafted, what else is new?"

It's so sad that in a time of war there is one single citizen who has that reaction--sadder still that I'm pretty sure I'm not alone, especially here.