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At mortuary in Kuwait, soldiers live among death |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Thursday, 27 May 2004 |
CAMP WOLVERINE, Kuwait — The Theater Mortuary Evacuation Point is difficult to find. And that’s just the way the Army likes it.
The entrance is on the edge of this American base, near a runway at Kuwait City International Airport.
It is a small camp within a camp, ringed by 12-foot-high cargo shipping containers. Military mortuary workers here don’t even sleep with the rest of the troops, instead bedding down in tents within the secured compound.
“Most people don’t even know this is here,†said Lt. Ted Carter, the forward commander of the 54th Quartermaster Company based in Fort Lee , outside Petersburg. “It’s by design.â€
But the secrecy cloaks a massive operation.
Most of the 801 U.S. service members who died in Iraq make a stop here first. Their remains are prepared and resealed in coffin like boxes by the soldiers of the 54th.
Embalmments or autopsies wait until the dead reach their final destination at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware or Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Restricted access to America’s war dead here extends to reporters, who are not allow to watch or record the actual transfer of remains. The 54th agreed to a tour of the facility last week.
The military treats the process of moving the dead even more discreetly now, after a contractor snapped a picture recently of a planeload of silver transfer cases carrying the dead.
The contractor was fired after newspapers across the country put the image on their front pages last month, reviving the debate over whether the military should allow members of the news media to record the event.
There should be no debate, said Staff. Sgt. Seth Brawley.
“The families are grieving, and they don’t want to see that,†said Brawley, the 54th’s non commissioned officer in charge.
When the dead come, they arrive on cargo planes out of Iraq. Some of the 17 mortuary-affairs specialists deployed here then carry them into refrigerated containers on the beds of trucks.
An American flag often is draped over the transfer case to show that the remains are from a U.S. service member or civilian.
But dead coalition soldiers from New Zealand, Ukraine, South Africa and the Philippines also have made their way through this checkpoint.
All remains are driven through a back entrance of Camp Wolverine to the Theater Mortuary Evacuation Point. On one recent visit, a large forklift moved 16 empty cases into the compound.
The units of the dead and wounded are supposed to record all of their personal effects for shipment home. Items arrive here in an air-conditioned tent, where workers sort through the bags and triple-check their accuracy.
Playing music on the radio helps distract the soldiers from dwelling on the artifacts of lives lost.
Soldiers here have seen everything from American and Iraqi money to family pictures and personal letters. A box packed up this week included several books among its contents.
Officials asked that the specific items, as well as the deceased service member’s name, not be revealed.
“You can’t help seeing something like an unopened letter from home or a letter written home that was never sent,†said Sgt. Manuel Lopez, who supervises soldiers in the personal-effects tent. “It’s tough.â€
Fearful of offending families, Lopez and others wanted to make it clear that they don’t nose around in a fallen soldier’s most intimate items. Their only purpose is to make sure that the items are shipped back correctly, they said.
Once the items are boxed up, they’re shipped to Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland.
The remains-processing tent looks somewhat like an Army field hospital. The examining room is brightly lit, well air-conditioned and lined with a prefabricated hardwood floor. Next to a large table sits an ice container to keep the remains cool for the trip home.
A biblical passage from Micah – “Rejoice not against me, o my enemy. When I fall, I shall rise†– has been posted over one doorway.
Soldiers here said they have an obsession with accuracy. A piece of paper hangs over the processing table like a morbid cheat sheet. Words like asphyxiation and decapitation are commonly misspelled by soldiers, officials said. The sheet helps soldiers who don’t want a delay with the remains because of a spelling error on the forms.
The tone of the operation can be fairly detached. The war dead are known as “HR,†for human remains.
“You see a letter and it says, 'Come home soon, son,’ and you start to think,†said Spec. Ascend Ochoa, 20. “But you can’t get too attached. You’d never be able to do your job.â€
The goal is to process the remains in less than 12 hours. After the wounded, the dead, sealed in silver transfer cases, have top priority for space on cargo flights out of the region.
A slow day will bring no more than a single set of remains here. A busy 24-hour stretch could bring as many as 15. “Actually,†Brawley said, “a bad day is any day we get one.â€
When the remains come here, they have been stamped “believe-to-be.†The final identity confirmation is not official until DNA and fingerprint tests are run in Delaware or Germany.
The 54th Quartermaster Company, the only active-duty mortuary-affairs outfit in the Army, has been here in waves since the first days of the war.
And they’ve been stretched thin. The latest detachment from the company came last month, an especially heavy period for casualties.
“My family doesn’t like to watch the news,†Brawley said. “When they see guys getting killed, they know that I’m working.â€
Working here can be both grueling and grim, soldiers said.
“But we have a good support system here,†said Private 1st Class Mari Lopez, 20, originally from Los Angeles.
They’re on call for 24 hours and then rest for a day. In their spare time, they troll the aisle of the Army exchange and watch movies.
Sometimes, they’ll socialize with others at Camp Wolverine, but the kind of work they do can make some uncomfortable, especially those heading north to Iraq.
“So usually when they’re off,†Carter said, “a lot of people just sleep.â€
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=70828&ran=145676
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“Cowards die may times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard It seems to me most strange that men should fear, Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.” William ShakespeareFrom Ham
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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