Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
The "Transfer Tubes" Myth?
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2003 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
"But today's military doesn't even use the words "body bags" � a term in common usage during the Vietnam War, when 58,000 Americans died.This is a Toronto Star story by Tim Harper. But he never cites a source and I can't find the phrase "transfer tubes" in the context of pouches for human remains anywhere (via Google) on a .mil or .gov site.During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon began calling them "human remains pouches" and it now refers to them as "transfer tubes."
It could be true - only Tim Harper knows how verifiable his info is. A bunch of blogs jumped on it because it's tasty.
Man, that title is Salon-y.
