WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army said Friday it would apologize to the families of about 275 officers killed or wounded in action who were mistakenly sent letters urging them to return to active duty. The letters were sent a few days after Christmas to more than 5,100 Army officers who had recently left the service. Included were letters to about 75 officers killed in action and about 200 wounded in action.
"Army personnel officials are contacting those officers' families now to personally apologise for erroneously sending the letters," the army said in a statement. It said the database normally used for such correspondence with former officers had been "thoroughly reviewed" to remove the names of dead and wounded soldiers. "But an earlier list was used inadvertently for the December mailings," it added.
It is astounding, senseless, and reprehensible. Dispatched lifeless things. Painful expressions landing impassive upon the gaping face of loss.
Words teetering drunkenly, hand to hand to eye newly dampened with woe and numbing queries of how, what, when, where, why…
Wounds reopened to the fresh pinch of grief and the smoldering task of remembrance; tracing the whispering shape of their face, recalling the laughter spill forth their red lips.
Slowly now in immense shuddering, like a gale reaching under the rafters, it lifts them, forcing love to its knees once again.
It is astounding, indefensible, and rather dreadful, and there is a terrible irony woven within it; the fact that the regrettable letters were sent to those already dead... isn't the real tragedy.
The letters were sent a few days after Christmas to more than 5,100 Army officers who had recently left the service. Included were letters to about 75 officers killed in action and about 200 wounded in action.
"Army personnel officials are contacting those officers' families now to personally apologise for erroneously sending the letters," the army said in a statement.
It said the database normally used for such correspondence with former officers had been "thoroughly reviewed" to remove the names of dead and wounded soldiers.
"But an earlier list was used inadvertently for the December mailings," it added.
Dispatched lifeless things. Painful expressions
landing impassive upon the gaping face of loss.
Words teetering drunkenly, hand to hand to eye
newly dampened with woe and numbing queries
of how, what, when, where, why…
Wounds reopened to the fresh pinch of grief
and the smoldering task of remembrance;
tracing the whispering shape of their face,
recalling the laughter spill forth their red lips.
Slowly now in immense shuddering, like a gale
reaching under the rafters, it lifts them,
forcing love to its knees once again.
It is astounding, indefensible, and rather dreadful,
and there is a terrible irony woven within it;
the fact that the regrettable letters were sent
to those already dead... isn't the real tragedy.
Copyright © 2007 mrp / thepoetryman
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