The Air Force has admitted that it dumped the remains of at least 274 fallen American warriors in a Virginia landfill — “far more than the military had acknowledged, before halting the secretive practice three years ago,” reported the Washington Post.

According to an earlier report in the Post, the Air Force had acknowledged that for years the Dover Air Force Base mortuary had disposed of the remains of soldiers in this manner, after assuring families that it would deal with the remains of their loved ones in a dignified and respectful manner. Families never knew that the remains had been dumped at the landfill, and officials said they had no plans to contact specific families now.

Air Force documents indicated that the landfill is in King George County, Virginia, and is operated by Waste Management Inc. A spokesperson for that company said it was not told of the origins of the ashes, which were delivered there by a military contractor. “We were not specifically made aware of that process by the Air Force,” Lisa Kardell told the Post.

Air Force officials “said the procedure was limited to fragments or portions of body parts that were unable to be identified at first or were later recovered from the battlefield, and which family members had said could be disposed of by the military,” the Post reported. The procedure was stopped in 2008, and since then the remains of cremated soldiers have been placed in urns and buried at sea.

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