The Hardest Job in the Army

...At the gate, we come to a crossroads...

...Everything is triple-checked...

...I feel bad...

...The other is traveled only by Mortuary Affairs personnel, who bring along the bodies of deceased soldiers in order to send them home...

...I speak to God in my own way...

...Flew his body back, faxed the obits to the local papers, called the priests, the sexton, the florists and stonecutter...

...And I'm the one that has the final image of them—me...

...It is the Theater Mortuary Evacuation Point...

...Years ago, a good friend of his was killed, and his body wasn't fit for viewing...

...I'm just there to do my job...

...I personally," says Ziggy, "would rather—and doc would too—work with anatomy as opposed to reading half-written letters, or seeing baby pictures, or a little boy's shoe...

...Around here, everyone has his taboos and superstitions, his rituals and preferences...

...There, the body is embalmed and fitted with a new, individually tailored uniform that contains every rank and decoration for which the deceased is eligible...

...It is inscribed: "Think not only upon their passing, remember the glory of their spirit...

...We took custody of the body to enable us to process his remains with the same dignity and respect of each of our own soldiers," says Dillon...

...Then he puts his fallen comrades on a plane and prays over their transfer cases...

...Jones once worked in a civilian mortuary but says the difference is striking...

...Sometimes, it's not just the family members who need closure...

...They separate high-dollar items from low-dollar items, military possessions from civilian ones...

...Brooks Brenkus, says is never, ever done: "We don't joke at all about remains...

...Somebody that doesn't even know them...

...While you might expect them to build up a doctor's desensitization to pain and death, just from the frequency with which they encounter it, I don't sense this...

...We're a very eclectic bunch," says Bullock...

...There's a certificate of destruction that has to be filled out," says Col...

...It is here that active duty and reservists from all four branches, along with medical examiners and morticians, finish the work that their counterparts in Kuwait began...

...Dillon is tall with a thin mustache...

...It changes things a lot...

...Maybe you don't...

...It's small wonder that personnel here like to piss on him...

...His people see "bodies burnt, mutilated, beaten to death, filled with maggots, shot to pieces . . . but they go on working knowing that they will be the last people to ever see the body again...

...Staff Sergeant Curtis Tilghman, who assists with embalming, takes regular trips to Personal Effects...

...Actually freezing the remains, says Dillon, would "make the mortician's job almost impossible...

...I'm taken to another office building to do a group interview with an array of mortuary staffers, but before we start, I excuse myself to the men's room...

...We're going to do our level best to account for everybody...

...While they have teams of mental health professionals at their disposal, whom they are encouraged to chat with regularly, Brenkus says that realistically, he will lose 25 percent of his people after this deployment...

...Back in the processing tent is where they sort through whatever came in with the deceased...

...Many nights...

...He hears them talk about "acceptable risks," and about the relatively few casualties—"it could've been worse...

...It's been over a year since I've heard a dog bark," he laments (although he re-upped for another stint when his initial year-long assignment expired...

...I don't care if you have Alzheimer's...

...At Camp Wolf in Kuwait, I met Staff Sergeant Carlos Roman, a former infantryman who now works the last leg on the Kuwaiti end of the Mortuary Affairs line...

...Because I used to be infantry, so when I see a lot of those guys come through here, I take it, you know, personal...

...That's a year older than the average age of the deceased coming through...

...So in a sense, I take that last look...

...And it is partly, as Bullock, who handled enemy dead in Afghanistan, says, that "it's still a remain...

...In advance of this visit, I have read a Gannett reporter's account of his travels with a forward collection team (the Mortuary Affairs troops who travel to the forward areas, so that individual units can drop off their deceased...

...Craig Mallak don't just do identifications...

...Some of them are just not going to be able to be seen...

...Neither will anything that has the remotest possibility of upsetting a survivor—say, a photo of a woman other than the deceased's wife...

...Some won't turn it on...

...Yet there is a special pocket in this otherwise nondescript military tent city...

...If he does, he says, "you can come visit me in jail, because I would lose it without thinking twice...

...At a gate on the camp's outskirts, I roll up in an SUV with Army Col...

...If we can, nobody will ever go into the Tomb of the Unknown again...

...From the time the chaplain says a prayer and the honor guard boards the plane to transfer the cases to hearses which then take them a half-mile away to the mortuary, there are but two goals: to positively identify the remains and to return them home to their families as quickly as possible...

...You have to treat that remain with utmost respect, because that's our job, no matter who it is...

...But when you look at their ID card, you look at their dog tags, you go through their wallet and see pictures of their family...

...And when I get my moment, I do my thing...

...To weary morgue staffers, it seems like it's always in the middle of the night...

...Under the influence of beer and bravado, people say stupid things...

...They laugh about overweight reservists and assign vicious nick-names—"Juggernaut" to the sergeant with the large head, "PW" (for "P— Whipped") for the officer they heard chatting up his girlfriend on the phone...

...It is barren and arid, and the frequent sandstorms that whip through make the entire place look like it's been breaded in a Shake 'N' Bake bag...

...The dead leave this military life just as they came in: in a blizzard of paperwork...

...Where the urinal puck would usually be is a sticker of Osama bin Laden with the inscription, "In your face...

...A week later and half a world away, I shoot up the Coastal Highway of Delaware from Rehoboth Beach, where yuppie parents stuff their children with Thai food and Grotto's Pizza...

...My family has the privilege of still having me...

...Yes I have...

...On the other hand, I wouldn't want my family to see me like that...

...But it's just a guy off the street...

...Who am I to be able to see them in this last condition they're in...

...I say the things I need to say...

...There is paperwork for everything...

...You become a family, see what I mean...

...His wife and children live back in New Orleans, but he speaks in the geographically indistinguishable accent shared by many military lifers who, moving every two or three years, never get the chance to settle into regionalisms...

...It's still somebody's family...

...Dillon...

...A litmus test, of sorts, comes during training back in Richmond, Va., where prospective 92 Mikes spend time in the mortuary and see all manner of death...

...Personal Effects] is a tough place to work...

...Back home, he worked with psychiatrists from the Army's medical headquarters at Walter Reed Hospital to develop pre- and post-deployment treatment plans, after tallying over 20 soldiers who needed treatment for depression or for making "suicide gestures...

...Before anyone touches the transfer cases, however, a senior officer, a chaplain, and Dover's acting mortuary director Bill Zwicharowski, a former Marine whom everyone calls Zig-gy, enter the plane, making sure the cases are flag-draped, draping them if they aren't...

...She felt and touched and made contact with her father...

...They also assemble the pieces that tell the story...

...They help provide one-third of the nation's strategic airlift capability, but the ice-filled metal transfer cases are what we gather to discuss...

...Even though he can't imagine doing another job, he says, "I will not miss coming from chow to the stench of death or aura of sadness and grief that surrounds that processing tent...

...They have had to clean up his handiwork again and again: from the U.S.S...

...It's a relief to be back in the land of plenty, spying crab-houses and Four Gospel churches, Harley shops and spring produce stands promising strawberries, sweet corn, and "candylopes...

...It could be Saddam himself...

...Descending into this subculture, one expects a certain amount of M*A*.S*ff-like black humor, for coping purposes, if no other...

...I've seen the face of nearly every person that's died in this war," he says...

...And I pray for all of them...

...You put this on," he says, patting his uniform...

...This is partly, he says, to prove to them "we're not infidels...

...But Ziggy tells a story, from when he was a mortician in the civilian world, that illustrates its importance...

...I'll hear that name again...

...Here at Camp Wolf, these young soldiers also have pressure releases...

...I respect that feeling...

...Their helmet graffiti read "Don't Be the One" and "Smell the Dead...

...To see the agony some of these soldiers went through, you won't ever forget this...

...Though there are no onlookers, the arrivals are met by an honor guard for what is called a "dignified transfer...

...Brenkus speaks with a clipped, bolt-action intensity, and still looks like the multisport high school athlete he was back in Maryland, even though he's a grand old man at 27 years of age...

...They witness the worst that mankind has to offer, seeing what combat looks like when it all goes wrong, as it inevitably does...

...But there is one thing the company commander, Capt...

...During the funeral service, his friend's young daughter approached him and wanted to see her dad...

...And once I finish doing it, and I'm done with it all, they're in the transfer case, they're sealed, they're in the plane, they're gone—that's when I take my moment alone...

...That was difficult...

...It depicts a fallen soldier, sprawled next to his M-16, with an angel ministering to him...

...We go to extremes to try to offer the family some viewa-bility—extremes that probably the civilian sector would not," the former mortuary owner says...

...The other family members of these service members that I'm seeing don't have that...

...Roman speaks with a thick Puerto Rican accent, and has a lineman's build, a bristly high-and-tight, and a pair of hard brown eyes that could intimidate an enemy into surrender...

...It could've been all day for all I cared...

...Everything is tracked all the way through the whole process...

...Others want, even need, to make a connection to the deceased...

...It's not going to be possible, you understand...

...Since that day, the men and women of Mortuary Affairs have grown considerably busier...

...A nation is judged on how we take care of our dead, and we do the best job throughout the world in handling our dead...

...Of the 128 publicly identified American dead—there are 140 total as of May 5—a fifth weren't old enough to order a drink in a bar...

...But I've already said that regardless of what I see, I'm not going to stop working...

...Over the last two months, each has made memories he'll never be able to shake...

...To sequester these sensitive belongings, the Mortuary Affairs specialists, nicknamed "92 Mikes" after their Army job classification number, must fill out more paperwork...

...While the families have been notified by this point that it is believed their loved one has perished, the military takes no chances, making sure to positively identify the deceased either through fingerprinting, dental records, or, if all else fails, DNA...

...They don't even want to understand what you do," says Brenkus...

...You can't see what we have and not hurt...

...From there, the deceased are put in metal transfer cases and placed in refrigeration trailers until they can be flown out...

...You drive them by hearse...

...So when someone asks me why would you do it, it's because you're seeing your son, you're touching his hands, you're seeing his uniform on him, as opposed to a metal casket...

...In a group interview in the reception area, I learn more about these unique soldiers...

...I'm seeing, but I'm not seeing what I'm seeing...

...Some of them got into this lightly, but nobody stays in that way...

...Dillon is working on a plan to catalog the remains and personal effects of the Iraqi dead, as well—then to bury them at their place of death in accordance with their Islamic customs...

...They are brought through swinging doors to the back of the processing tent, which by necessity is constantly Cloroxed and extremely well air-conditioned, since the smell would be unbearable in the 120-degree heat...

...They come out of the refrigeration trucks (called "reefers") usually in body bags— which the ever-euphemistic Army now calls "human remains pouches...

...Dillon's e-mails: "There is no greater honor than to serve those who have made the ultimate sacrifice...

...All of these records will be kept forever, since they still get family queries going back to Vietnam, Korea, and even the Civil War...

...Sometimes we get portions of bodies," Mallak says...

...It is a place where cause becomes effect, where military service is considered sacrament, where all the editorial-page flapjaw about "sacrifice" becomes haltingly, disturbingly real...

...I pray for their families...

...Have I cried and shed tears out here...

...That's where it gets personal...

...I don't know—sometimes the names just stick with me...

...But the first time I processed the remains of an American soldier, I can still remember his name...

...We're all pretty weird, but we're weird in our own way...

...And all of this, the 92 Mikes will tell you with solemn pride, is done around the clock—sleep is often not an option—so that they can get their fallen comrades on a plane within 10 hours...

...He opened his friend's casket, just a little, "and she held her dad's hand and talked to him for 20 minutes," he says...

...Just as important, Ziggy goes to work doing the cosmetology and restorative art that can make the difference between an open and closed casket...

...In training, "they'll bring out a decomposed body, so you can see the severities of death," says Specialist Kyna Bullock, who at 24 is already a two-war veteran, having done the same job in Afghanistan...

...Already, Col...

...It changes everything when you see somebody come through here that has on a uniform like you, that lost their life fighting for a cause...

...Brenkus knows about death—his father died when he was 15, forcing him to be "the rock of the family...

...You can [only] deflect that emotion for so long...

...In another tent is a personal effects depot, where I watch a team go through belongings that a soldier left behind at camp—in this case, it was pocket change...

...If it's a remain, we process it and do it with respect...

...One road goes to the military side of the airport...

...They live by a credo you'll read as the sign-off on all of Col...

...This guy came into our living rooms every weekend [on the Saturday Today Show] with Soledad O'Brien...

...We act out things we cannot put in words...

...You can get a remain in and it may not look like that person...

...Dillon made sure his people had access to a separate entrance, he says, because nothing shakes an incoming soldier's morale like seeing one of his fallen comrades returning home in a refrigeration truck...

...A minute, an hour, a day, to a husband or wife is like an eternity," says Ziggy...

...The bodies are strapped into the cases, and molded plastic headrests are placed beneath the heads to prepare them for the trip to Germany or Dover...

...He double- and triple-checks that everything has been properly prepared...

...Medical examiners like Navy Cmdr...

...You get angry because of the conditions they come in...

...What if I let you hold his hand...

...They are brought in through a reception area, where there is a painting done by one of Brenkus's men, inspired by a picture Brenkus brought back from Normandy...

...At first, it sounds like a morbid extreme to go to in the elusive attempt to gain "closure"—a word that one mortuary staffer after another uses incessantly, both here and in Kuwait...

...He balked, but she insisted...

...The remains go first to the medical examiner...

...The military has different classifications of viewability...

...Every dollar will be registered by serial number, to make sure it all gets back to the family...

...I would feel the same way...

...If you ask them why the rush—the dead will remain that way—they recoil...

...For some, especially the medical science and mortician types, dealing with the bodies isn't nearly as difficult as rifling through the personal effects...

...He risked his life out there, on the front lines with the 3rd ID," Jones marvels...

...He is just waiting, upon his return, to hear someone say, "Tough break— those who died signed up for the job," or, "It serves them right, they should've never been in Iraq...

...The Mortuary Affairs team is a close-knit lot, not only because of the nature of their jobs, but because many regular soldiers think it is bad juju to associate with them during times of war—a bit like asking the Grim Reaper to ride shotgun...

...Not that it can really prepare them for the field experience...

...It just makes me work harder...

...Never, ever, ever...

...In the grim arithmetic of a 92 Mike, a speedy return = honoring the dead...

...I was the weirdest kid on the block," says Staff Sergeant Gregory Jones...

...Some stay glued to the television to see who'll be coming through next...

...One of them is called "head wrap and dress"—in which, when damage has been done to the head or face that cannot be compensated for with a mortician's gifts, the head is wrapped in clean gauze, so that the family can just see the body...

...Brenkus says it sometimes becomes too big a load to shoulder...

...Occasionally, after enough time goes by, a family member wants to know what really happened, and it is the medical examiner who will be able to piece together the story: for instance, whether a driver was shot before his vehicle crashed...

...Personal effects come back with the deceased, attached in a pouch to their wrists— assuming they still have wrists...

...Some talk to the dead, some won't go near them...

...For Staff Sergeant Jones, it was the day NBC's David Bloom, embedded with the 3rd Infantry Division, came through...

...Richard Dillon, who oversees the 377th Theater Support Command, under which fall the Mortuary Affairs personnel from the 54th Quartermaster Company and two reserve units...

...All of this must be catalogued, and scrupulously accounted for...

...a life he hasn't known since his deployment in December 2001...

...It is paramount, they say, to get every piece that belongs to every individual identified—not only for burial, but to fill in the gaps...

...Oddly, the importance of the job seems to spoil anyone for other military occupational specialties...

...Nothing with blood on it will be forwarded to the family...

...Some want to be morticians or forensic scientists, others just want to pay off their college...

...And to their credit, not just our dead...

...Though we are comfortably in the rear, where quartermasters like Dillon usually do the unglamorous work of getting infantry types their bullets and beans, Dillon has brought along a sidearm—as mandated by the Army ever since a civilian contractor was murdered by a terrorist not far from here in January...

...The Mortuary Affairs specialists here are not morticians—the actual embalming and cosmetic work gets done at Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware...

...Before they leave, they go through Evacuation Section Quality Control...

...Because we're soldiers...

...When we get ready to work," he says, "It's like I'm standing here, and it's a different person who steps out...

...All possessions are sent to a stateside depot to be cleaned...

...That's not a thought a soldier wants to have...

...Before they leave, they have ice poured on their torsos, to keep them between 34 and 38 degrees...

...Temperamentally, there are plenty of self-described outsiders...

...The planes carrying the dead come at all hours...

...From the medical examiner, it is off to Ziggy's side of the operation...

...The 92 Mikes have a high reenlistment rate...

...The truth is," he says, "we all have issues...

...The soldiers live in the space where they work...

...Sometimes aircraft pieces...

...They never see the one thing a doctor does: a patient who can leave of his own accord...

...We've actually driven a hearse from here to Vermont because we could get it there quicker than flying...

...For one soldier, it was reading the helmet graffiti of a fallen Marine, which said: "I fight, so you don't have to...

...I've been to morgues several times...

...Cole and embassy bombings, to Khobar Towers, to the 9/11 Dover is famous for its C-5 planes, which are big enough to transport half a dozen Greyhound buses or 48 Cadillacs...

...There is the DD-2064, the overseas death certificate, and the DD-894, the fingerprint record, which includes a space where "amputations, abnormalities, missing fingers and/or dermis" can be noted...

...She agreed...

...But it's strange to meet him in here...

...It's more than just another war to me...

...It may not seem like much, but when the family says, 'Can you get them here before dark today?' and the only way to do it is drive them by hearse, guess what...

...Though Baghdad fell two weeks earlier, it makes no difference to the dead, who are still arriving at a semi-regular, albeit slower, clip...

...he asked...

...Maybe you want to meet him...

...I'll walk back through there, just to look at a picture or something," he says...

...And he has spent plenty of time in bars, where he has heard people talk about war...

...The bodies are also screened for explosive ordnance, which is sometimes still embedded in the corpse...

...In the civilian world, he says, "You don't have mortar rounds out there on the streets, hand grenades, land mines...

...They catalog it all, from the dead soldier's X-rays to his tattoos...

...I dragged roadkill home—my mother would literally hit me with a broom to get it off the porch...

...I always say to myself, 'That could've been me.' I'm blessed...

...It is the one military occupational specialty that the Army permits you to beg out of with no recriminations if you feel you can't hack it...

...Often, the easiest way to do his job is to make those eyes stop seeing...

...I make my way up to Dover AFB, which houses the Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs...

...For the fallen soldier, it is the last stop before going home to their families...

...It is the only Department of Defense port mortuary in the continental United States, and DoD policy prohibits me from going to the morgue when deceased are present...

...Thomas Lynch, The Undertaking Camp Wolf, Kuwait The backstretch of the Kuwait International Airport, like much of the rest of the country, is ugly...

...Because I'm still here...

...For this conflict is not something he's just watched on TV...

...You wonder if they were captured first, and then this was done to them...

...He hears it all the time...

...He speaks in the plodding, carefully measured cadences of a computer specialist, which is what this reservist is in his civilian life— Matt Labash is senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...

...But most don't seem to have an obsession with death...

...But there are still plenty for whom it becomes overwhelming...