UPDATE: Task & Purpose, an outlet covering military news, dug into the Fox News story we cited in our article and noted some major problems with that reporting.
From their article:
At the time, Gee's family was working with the non-profit group Honoring Our Fallen, Shamblin said. When the group learned that it would cost $60,000 to fly Gee from Sacramento to Arlington National Cemetery, the group flew her in a private plane to the cemetery, she said.
Shamblin said she does not think Gee's family ever asked the Defense Department to pay for the costs of moving Gee to Virginia to be interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
"I think that we got the information that that's how much it was going to cost, and the private non-profit just stepped in and took over from there," Shamblin. "I'm not even sure that it went to the point where they said ‘no.' That may have been the next step in the process, but we just never got to that point."
Still, Shamblin said she believes the Defense Department could have done more during the process of bringing Gee back from Afghanistan to California, noting that U.S. government agencies were slow to respond to her family at the time.
Also important:
If family members wish to see their service member buried elsewhere, such as in a national cemetery like Arlington, the family must pay to transport the members to that location. They can then request to be reimbursed for those expenses along with the rest of the funeral bill under a Defense Department policy.
With that in mind, here is the original article we cited from Fox:
Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee was one of the last American service members killed in action during the Kabul airport bombing in 2021, during Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Instead of having compassion for Gee's family and bringing the body of the slain soldier back to her final resting place in Arlington, Biden's Pentagon changed their policy and flat-out refused to foot the bill to ship the Marine's remains home.
Our government was willing to leave the dead body of a Marine to avoid paying a $60,000 bill.
From Fox News:
Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., who is an Army veteran, told Fox News Digital that during a meeting with the families of the "Fallen 13" last week, he was "enraged to learn that the Department of Defense had placed a heavy financial burden" on the family of Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, who were forced to find funding in the thousands to move her body to its final resting place after her 2021 death in Afghanistan.
The Gee family secured the funding, which came to "a staggering $60,000," to move their loved one's body after a nonprofit organization stepped in to cover the cost, Mills said.
The Pentagon footed the bill to get the body back to her hometown in California for the initial funeral, but made the family pay 60 grand to have Gee's remains moved to Arlington National Cemetery for her final burial.
If the non-profit hadn't stepped in, the Gee family would have paid for it all out of pocket.
"Typically, our fallen heroes are flown back home for a solemn service and then laid to a final rest at Arlington Cemetery with the utmost respect and honor," Mills said. "It is an egregious injustice that grieving families were burdened to shoulder the financial strain of honoring their loved ones. This is an unacceptable situation that demands immediate rectification."
Commentator Darryl Cooper of the MartyrMade podcast, who also co-hosts a podcast with former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink, had thoughts:
