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NYT Fixation With Fallen Soldiers v1203.2
The Heavy Burden of Retrieving Fallen Americans in Iraq Specialist Ryan Firth leaned out the doorway of the idling Black Hawk helicopter, the thump, thump, thump of the blades above him drowning out all sound, and he grabbed the handles of the green stretcher being passed his way. Atop that stretcher was a black vinyl body bag. Inside it were the remains of an American contractor killed just hours before in a suicide bombing in downtown Baquba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. "That's when it hit me," Specialist Firth, 29, said the next day. "To feel the weight of one of your comrades, to lift the dead body of a fellow American, you can never prepare yourself for that." For a moment, he fell silent. "It wakes you up to reality, you know?" he said as tears welled in his eyes. "There are people dying here." This was the first time Specialist Firth, a helicopter technician for the Missouri National Guard, was conducting what the military calls a hero mission, which is the process of retrieving the body of an American soldier, or sometimes a dead contractor, from the battlefield. American soldiers in Iraq handle the bodies with ritual and respect, from almost the instant of death to the moment those bodies are loaded onto a cargo plane headed back home. They catalog the names and formally transport the personal belongings, determined to preserve as much dignity as possible for those killed. Inside the chopper parked in front of Specialist Firth's at Camp Warhorse that day in August was the body of an American soldier who had died in the same attack as the contractor. More than 40 soldiers assembled to pay their last respects before the bodies were flown to a base in Balad, from which they would be shipped back to their families. MSM focuses on the deaths without crediting our fallen soldiers with their accomplishments. Disgusting. Posted by: Captain America 2005-10-01 |
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