Do we put enough emphasis (or too much) on returning our fallen service-members?

We as the Military/Vet community follow it, but I believe that the population as a majority do not.

All those who serve or have served are entitled to be returned and I feel every effort should be in place for that to happen. Never leave a fallen comrade.

We should never forget our fallen, IMHO.

As a country, I don't feel we put nearly enough emphasis on returning the fallen. Personally, I don't think you could ever put too much emphasis on returning a service member to the soil which they died for.

**** RELATED STORY ****

REMAINS OF PEARL HARBOR VICTIMS DUG UP FOR IDENTIFICATION ...

The military on Monday exhumed more caskets containing the unidentified remains of USS Oklahoma crew members killed in the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The coffins were dug up at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, where they have rested for decades. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said in April that it would disinter up to 388 Oklahoma servicemen to account for sailors and Marines still classified as missing.

The cemetery and the military allowed the media to observe a ceremony afterward when flags were draped over the coffins.

The Oklahoma identification project involves disinterring 61 caskets at 45 grave sites at the Honolulu cemetery commonly known as Punchbowl. More than a dozen caskets have already been exhumed.

The Oklahoma capsized after being hit by torpedoes during the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack. Altogether, 429 sailors and Marines on board were killed. Only 35 were identified in the years immediately after.

Hundreds were buried as unknowns at cemeteries in Hawaii. In 1950, they were reburied as unknowns at the Punchbowl.

The military is acting now, more than 70 years after the men died, because advances in forensic science and technology as well as genealogical help from family members have made it possible to identify more remains.

The identification work will be conducted at Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency laboratories in Hawaii and Nebraska. They will also be done at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

The agency expects to identify about 80 percent of Oklahoma crew members now considered missing. It expects the work will take about five years.

http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2015/07/27/uss-oklahoma-remains-dug-up-for-identification/30750103/

Bring em home.

There's no greater debt that we owe than that to our veterans, both living and dead...no matter where they are.

I think that America as a society needs to put more emphasis on these individuals. Those that have given the ultimate price should be mourned by all Americans. It is unfortunate though that you'll see a bigger headline for some celebrity that has died than the case of someone who has died overseas and finally returning home after X amount of years.

Leave no-one behind. Most have this as their ethos... (modified for gender correctness of course...)

The emphasis it there and id more than enough, unfortunately some would like to not see it at all, or keep it confined to military circles at a decent time... The reason I ofter hear is that they don't want to be "consistently reminded of our dead boys..." No... To do so would mean that they would have to have a desire to know their stories, or at least something about them; who they are, where they are from; how they paid the ultimate cost... To most AD, Vet and Civ, this paying of respect doesn't get old... A little sad, a little angry, a little tiresome, a little somber, a little honored, a little proud and a few other emotions, but it never gets old... To the community (Yes, some of the Civ's, Vet's and AD, not all of them) after seeing this a few of these they become sensitized to the entire affair to the point that, for some (not all), the process has become more of an inconvenience and a constant reminder of the cause of the disruption to their daily lives... Something they know happens, but keep it out of sight as they don't want it to damper their emotions or dictate change to their feelings...
DISCLAIMER: Not all civilians, AD and Vets feel this way, this opinion is just from my experience with those that do while working with our local VFW and AL, and yes, there are Vets and AD in this group as well...