After last week's report that the Air Force knowingly dumped the cremated remains of at least 274 servicemembers in Virginia landfills, the Air Force Times has come into possession of a photo that puts the calamity in a whole new light.

David Larter at the Military Times reports Staff Sgt. Elias Bonilla of the Army's 82nd Airborne division emailed this photo to the Air Force Times. It shows Air Force "Port Dogs," or aerial porters in training, at Lackland Air Force Base, posing with an open casket.

Inside the casket an airman poses with a noose around his neck and chains across his chest. On the photo is written "Da Dumpt, Da Dumpt .... Sucks To Be U." The photo surfaced one month after the announcement that the Air Force aerial porters dumped partial remains of combat dead in landfills.

The photo shows supervising sergeants standing alongside their subordinates and has prompted an internal Air Force investigation.

This look inside the process that guides America's combat dead home to rest is falling under scrutiny for the first time in nearly 20 years. The news coverage of fallen troops was banned under George H.W. Bush in 1991 during Desert Storm. That ban was just lifted in 2009 by President Obama and it appears that in the last two decades procedures have slipped from what they once were.

The Washington Post unearthed the initial lapses in their investigation and discovered the military dumping remains after promising families a burial of loved ones in "a dignified and respectful manner."

The Pentagon claims it is reluctant to launch a full scale investigation into the practice because it would entail searching the records of more than 6,300 servicemembers handled by the Air Force since 2001.