Quote:
Originally posted by KellyB369
I really don't want this to sound morbid or disrespectful because it's not meant to be. My coworkers and I were talking today about how we wondered if Reagan's body really was in that casket the whole time. I'm not saying we think he's not dead or anything like that. It's just that that is a lot of flying and moving from California to Washington and back to California.
Any thoughts?
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President Reagan's body was embalmed and casket already been sealed before it left the funeral home. Generally, in U.S. state funerals, the casket is always kept closed.
On SAM 28000 (the call sign for the VC-25A (Boeing 747) presidential aircraft) there's plenty of room on the main deck to find a secure location for the casket. (The USAF learned the hard way back during JFK's assassination - the rear section of SAM 26000 (a Boeing 707-300) had to have a couple of rows of seats and partitions removed to allow transportation of JFK's casket.) While the exact interior configuration of the Presidential aircraft is - for obvious reasons - classified, there is a staff conference room area aboard the plane that can be easily modified to allow carriage of a casket and permit Mrs. Reagan a private place to be with her husband.
If you want to know the basic information on how state funerals are performed, the following might be interesting reading:
Department of the Army Pamphlet 1-1: State, Official and Special Military Funerals (Adobe PDF)
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