I entirely agree, it's really amazing to me, especially the eulogy's reflection on the Cold War, how the conflict was personalized, and how mutual respect for service people is rendered. I can totally see how this could have been constructed in case news of the burial leaked to calm international outcry, but nevertheless I feel a profound respect for the ceremony.

"And so as we return their mortal remains to the deep, we do so in a way that we hope would have had meaning to them and clothed with a representative portion of the ship on which they served and perished."

Certainly an attempt at a respectful ceremony, but also an incredibly creepy look into the minds of people who have gone off the deep end regarding 'patriotism'.

I wonder how much of it was done as a hedge against the time when this would eventually come out.

"Sure, we tried to steal your sunken sub. But look, we played nice."

There was a book that covered this -- maybe one of the James Bamford books, and it was related by the sources as an act of respect and marine tradition and nothing indicating it had to do with the eventual declassification of the event.

This sort of mutual respect and tradition between enemy aircrews is not uncommon.

No, this is part of the marine culture. It comes from the fact that the see is the strongest, keeping everybody humble in face of nature.

Sea

yea, man, in any case it beats waiting for several days while your own sailors on Kursk were banging at the walls.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_submarine_Kursk_%28K-1...)

It was just 100m depth - a normal dive for professional divers - and i just remember how it was surprising that nothing was done during the next couple days. I mean such paralysis is typical for Russian bureaucratic machine, be it civilian or military (remember Rust?), yet these bangs were obviously easily heard by the listening anti-submarine posts of the Russian Navy ships idling right on top of it and nobody did nothing while waiting for the orders from "the top" and working around the clock trying to cover their a&&es.

While NATO offered to activate the submarine rescue system to assist. Most militaries respect their opponents, and all sailors respect the sea. It's when that is lacking that you start to see abuses more likely to occur - WW2 Japan in general, Germany against the Russians, the US against Iraqis since 2003.

You really need to read more military history.

I worked with the US navy for years, and while I suspect this was taped so they could prove the Soviet sailors were treated with respect, I have no doubt they would have treated the dead honorably in any case. That's the way sailors (particularly military) think, because they know they themselves could be under a flag tomorrow. They don't operate under the same day-to-day assumptions the rest of us do.

kind a cynical outlook. sailors have respect for each other, just as all warriors do.

Had that been the case they would have taken higher quality video. There's nothing to indicate the sentiment wasn't genuine.

My grandfather was an engineer on this project - it was done as a hedge against it coming out.