Passenger Says Delta Crew Stopped Her From Singing Anthem To Honor Fallen Soldier

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SAVANNAH, Ga. (KDKA/AP) - A Georgia physician says her plan to honor a fallen soldier by singing the U.S. national anthem aboard a Delta Air Lines plane carrying the soldier's casket was stopped by a flight attendant who told her it would violate company policy.

Dr. Pamela Gaudry of Savannah said she and fellow passengers were told "to stay quietly in our seats" as an honor guard escorted the casket from the plane Saturday after it had arrived in Atlanta from Philadelphia.

She said a flight attendant told her that singing "The Star Spangled Banner" would make passengers from other countries uncomfortable.

"I'm humiliated by my lack of courage to sing the national anthem in my own country on American soil with a deceased soldier on the plane," Gaudry said.

Delta spokesman Anthony Black said Monday that the airline has no policy on singing the national anthem.

He declined to comment on Gaudry's account, which she told in a video viewed more than 800,000 times on Facebook.

Gaudry didn't know it at the time, but the body of Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright was being flown back to Georgia to be buried.

Wright was one of four soldiers killed earlier this month when 50 ISIS-affiliated fighters attacked them in a remote area of the African nation of Niger.

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