Bodies of Iraqi Attack Victims Brought Home

In a grim ceremony under cold, leaden skies, sailors in dress whites today carried the bodies of the victims of an Iraqi missile attack off the plane that brought them home.

Thirty-six of the 37 men who died in the attack on the frigate Stark were borne off the immense C-141 Starlifter and into a cavernous hangar for a memorial service. The body of the 37th man has not been found.

The Navy Band from Washington stood alongside the plane, alternating “The Navy Hymn” and “America the Beautiful” with funereal drum rolls as, one by one, the gray, flag-draped transfer cases were brought off the plane.

They were carried by eight-man crews--six pallbearers with an officer in the lead and another sailor bringing up the rear. They marched in slow cadence into the hangar, where the cases were placed on cinder-block pedestals.

About 20 family members stood along the short route to the hangar, sobbing and shivering in the unseasonable, 50-degree weather despite the green blankets brought out for them.

Of the 37 dead, only one has not been publicly identified. Pentagon spokesman John Woodhouse said that the name was not released at the direction of the family and that his remains were being shipped directly from Dover to the sailor’s home because his family did not want to participate in the ceremony.

The bodies will be prepared for burial at the base mortuary here, and it will then be up to the victims’ families to decide where the coffins are to be shipped, Woodhouse said.

The men died May 17 when missiles fired by the Iraqi warplane hit the Stark in the Persian Gulf.