“Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way

he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was a son of God!” Mark 15-39

The high velocity bullet entered the 27-year-old sergeant’s face below his left eye. It exited his head and blew away most of his skull from an inch above his eyebrows. By the time our casualty receiving team removed his body from the helicopter he had bled out all over the chopper’s floor. They tried valiantly to get his breathing started, but everyone knew their efforts were in vain. He was “called” at 1538 (3:58 pm) and I was called to his stretcher at the same time. I took out my stole and oil stock and asked for some quiet. The frenetic energy of the casualty receiving ward was now replaced by a profound stillness. I reached out with my thumb to mark his brow with the sign of the cross and realized that he no longer had a forehead, so I signed his good cheek with the mark of baptism. “Let us pray,” I said, and the doctors, nurses and corpsmen bowed their heads. Most touched him. One knelt on the bloody floor with his head touching the gurney. I was told that he was Roman Catholic so I had brought one of the cheap plastic rosaries from my office. I placed it in his hands. Perhaps his parents would later treasure it as a priceless relic of their son’s last moments. I said the commendation from the Book of Common Prayer: “Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world…May your rest this day be in peace, with your dwelling place in the Paradise of God.” I concluded with a prayer from his Christian tradition: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death,” adding “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for your child now at the hour of his death.”

“So Joseph took the body and wrapped it
in a clean linen cloth…” Matthew 27:59

After some more silence, we began to clean up the ward. Two corpsmen gently, almost tenderly, began to wipe the blood off his body. Others started to mop up his blood from the tent floor. I helped hold the body bag open as they carefully lifted him into its blackness. We curtained off an examination area in the room across the passageway as a quiet place where his body would rest until it could be transported to mortuary affairs later that evening. I was concerned about our staff which had just been through an emotionally wrenching experience. After the cleanup was done, I commented to a young corpsman that this was hard work. She agreed it was. I asked her if she, as a respiratory therapist, did this sort of thing in her civilian work. She said, “Yes, but this is harder because he died for someone else’s country."

I then asked one of the patient admin staff to find my chaplain’s assistant, Petty Officer W.M. He arrived in a few minutes and I asked him to call Camp Arifjan’s Roman Catholic chaplain to come and perform last rites. The Army chaplain came quickly and Petty Officer W.M., a devout Roman Catholic, assisted the priest in performing the services of his church. I thanked the Catholic chaplain by saying that the sergeant’s family would be comforted with the knowledge that a Catholic priest gave him last rites.
It took several hours to complete the arrangements to transport the soldier’s body to the morgue. Petty Officer W.M. and I took turns keeping a vigil with him. We made certain that he was never left alone until he was handed over to the mortuary affairs staff. The six man crew on the ambulance was composed of Petty Officer W.M. and me and four of the corpsmen who had worked to save his life. It was important for them to see some closure by carrying him on the next step of his journey home. It was dark when we left the hospital. The entire hospital staff stood silently at attention and saluted as we placed his body in the ambulance.

“…and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn from the rock.

He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away” Matthew 27:60

Every hospital keeps its morgue tucked away in some remote corner of the building, far from the beaten path. One has to be very intentional about finding them. The Army’s morgue is no exception. It is at the far end of the airport down a winding alley behind several buildings. There is no sign on the outside of the building designating it “mortuary affairs” – only a bright red sign that reads “access restricted.” This could be any commercial building with a loading platform in front of double doors. The only clue that this is a morgue is the metal coffins stacked outside like upside down aluminum fishing boats.

The Army’s mortuary affairs department is staffed by a wonderful group of National Guardsmen from Puerto Rico. These dedicated men and women go about their grim work with a solemn, compassionate dignity. They are truly the unknown and unsung heroes of this war. As we wheeled his body through the doors we entered their world, and it was the saddest world I’ve ever seen. The room is about 20’ by 24’. The walls are painted an eggshell white and there is an immaculately clean floor covered in a fake, brown wood parquet linoleum. On one wall hangs a huge American flag. On the wall perpendicular to it, are two large ice machines with a sign over them that reads: “Scoops: 7 head, 5 chest, 10 legs.” Directly across the room hangs a white board that has written in a column: “234, CIV, followed by his name; 235 Sgt. ______, USMC; 236, decapitated portion.” Along the same wall are stacked boxes and boxes of American flags. There is also a set of shelves made by 2x4s holding dozens of large bottles of pine oil and other disinfectants.

The most heart rending sight of all is in the middle of the floor. There in a 10’ by 15’ area are neatly arranged footlockers, duffle bags, and sea bags, backpacks, and cardboard boxes closed with gray duct tape. Each is secured with a red metal seal and there is a sign taped on each one that bears the name of a soldier, his or her unit, and the word “deceased.” These are the personal effects of the dead, waiting to be shipped home to wives and husbands, children and parents. One can only begin to imagine the pain and grief that arrive with these possessions.

We assisted the mortuary crew as they gently lifted his body into the GI issue metal coffin. They unzipped the body bag, placed an ID tag on his wrist and resealed it again. They also taped a label to the inside of the casket lid. They closed the coffin and latched it shut. As the flag was reverently placed on it, our senior chief called “attention” and we rendered a salute. It was after midnight and it had been a very long day.

“The women who had come with him from Galilee followed,

and they saw the tomb and how his body
was laid. Then they returned…” Luke 23:55-56

Outside, as we prepared to leave, one of the mortuary affairs soldiers offered us some “Puerto Rican coffee.” We were all amazed at their hospitality. Petty Officer W.M., a world-class coffee lover, was the only one of us to take them up on it. Someone asked if they had any Bacardi, and we all laughed at the thought in this “dry” Islamic country. On the way home Petty Officer W.M. noticed that I still had the sergeant’s bloodstains on my uniform. We spent the trip back to Camp Arifjan eating dry Frosted Flakes and Girl Scout cookies in the darkness of the back of the ambulance, reflecting on the meaning of what we had done, and discussing the best method of laundering the dried blood from my shirt.