The majority of military gravestones from other eras are inscribed with just the basic, required information: name, rank, military branch, date of death, and, if applicable, the war and foreign country in which the person served.
Families are supposed to have final approval over what goes on the tombstones, but that hasn't always happened.
Nadia and Robert McCaffrey, whose son Patrick was killed in Iraq in June 2004, said ''Operation Iraqi Freedom" ended up on his headstone in Oceanside, Calif., without family approval.
''I was a little taken aback," Robert McCaffrey said, describing his reaction when he first saw Patrick's tombstone. ''They certainly didn't ask my wife; they didn't ask me." Patrick's widow told him she had not been asked either, he said.
''In one way, I feel it's taking advantage to a small degree," Robert McCaffrey said. ''Patrick did not want to be there, that is a definite fact."
The owner of the company that has been making gravestones for Arlington and other national cemeteries for nearly two decades is uncomfortable, too.
''It just seems a little brazen that that's put on stones," said Jeff Martell, owner of Granite Industries of Vermont. ''It seems like it might be connected to politics."
The Department of Veterans Affairs said it isn't. ''The headstone is not a PR purpose," said Steve Muro, a department official. ''It is to let the country know and the people that visit the cemetery know who served this country and made the country free for us."
Since 1997, the government has paid for almost everything inscribed on the gravestones. Before that, families had to pay for any inscription beyond the basics.
It wasn't until the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 that the department instructed cemetery directors and funeral homes across the country to advise families of fallen troops that they could have operation names like ''Enduring Freedom" or ''Iraqi Freedom" on the headstones.
VA officials said neither the Pentagon nor the White House exerted pressure to get families to include the operation names. They said families always could include information like battle or operation names, but didn't always know it.
