This Spring, Soldier Dead - How We Recover, Identify, Bury, and Honor Our Military Fallen by Michael Sledge, will be published by Columbia University Press, New York. It is a stunning book that brings to light the history behind US remains recovery. An in-depth and sensitively written study, the book covers America's combat history and our military tradition of returning battlefield casualties through the recovery of remains hours, days, years, and decades after hostilities have ended. Over the next few weeks, AII POW-MIA will be posting excerpts from the book with the kind permission of the Author, Mike Sledge, and his wonderful publisher and agent. We appreciate this opportunity.
This is a must read for everyone and an exceptional book. For those wishing to order, please go to-
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/023113/0231135149.HTM
$29.95
April, 2005
352 pages
ISBN: 0-231-13514-9
Soldier Dead - Chapter; Open Wounds
"If all 88,000 people in Tyler, Texas, suddenly disappeared, a national alarm would sound and we would devote unlimited resources to finding them. Any political leader who displayed less than complete support for the effort would feel the wrath of an enraged public. But if 88,000 Americans slipped away in ones, twos, and threes, over a period of years, their disappearance would generate much less news. Families of the missing, though, would be immediately and continually concerned, regardless of the lack of national attention, and unless their loved ones were found, their wounds would never fully heal.
There are approximately 78,000 Americans missing from World War II, 8,100 from the Korean War, and 1,900 from the Vietnam War, for a total of 88,000. They would .fill the stands of a large football stadium. If they left the stands and stood in the field, one person per square yard, they would spill out into the parking lot, taking up the space of 15 more football fields. Lined up, one yard apart, they would stretch for almost 50 miles. It is only a guess as to how many family members are intimately involved with the 88,000 missing, but the number is certainly many times higher. Whatever the final numbers, as New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani replied when asked how many people were killed in the attack on the World Trade Center, it is "more than we can bear"
And even when families have remains returned to them for final disposition, many find that "grief resolution" and "working through grief" are but words; the reality is that they have been permanently crippled-they carry the signs of a wound that only those similarly marked can recognize and understand.
Then, there are two other wounded parties who are not as readily apparent as grieving parents, spouses, and children. One is Armed Forces personnel-those who have seen too many dead in combat-related incidents and those who have worked intimately with remains in order to recover, identify, and return them to their loved ones. These service members often do not even know that they are injured. The other is our national sense of honor. Although hundreds of thousands of young people have been asked to lay down their lives, there is an unfulfilled obligation to tens of thousands to and them and bring them home. Since the wounds thus exacerbated are deep and extensive, many Americans search desperately for a healing treatment. But a complete cure is elusive because of many difficulties and challenges not fully understood by those unfamiliar with the problem."
And from the Press Release;
"What happens to members of the United States Armed Forces after they die? Why do soldiers endanger their lives to recover the remains of their comrades? Why does the military spend enormous resources and risk further fatalities to recover the bodies of the fallen, even decades after the cessation of hostilities? Soldier Dead is the first book to fully address the complicated physical, social, religious, economic, and political issues concerning the remains of men and women who die while serving their country.
Why does recovering the remains of servicepeople matter? Soldier Dead examines this question and provides a thorough analysis of the processes of recovery, identification, return, burial, and remembrance of the dead. The author relates the treatment of enemy dead to our own protocols and shows how unresolved issues regarding the handling of enemy dead continue to affect U.S. foreign relations in wartime.
Skillfully incorporating excerpts from interviews, personal correspondence and diaries, military records and journalistic accounts -as well as never-before-published photographs and his own reflections -Michael Sledge presents a clear, concise, and compassionate story about what the dead mean to the living and how the living strive to find balance in a new life without the physical presence of a comrade, father, mother, brother, sister, son, or daughter.
Throughout Soldier Dead, the voices of the dead are heard, as are those of family members and military personnel responsible for the dead before final disposition. At times disturbing and at other times encouraging, they are always powerful as they speak of danger, duty, courage, commitment, and care.
Contents
Introduction
1. Why It Matters
2. Combat Recoveries
3. Noncombat Recoveries
4. Identification
5. The Return of the Dead
6. Burial
7. All Bodies Are Not the Same
8. Open Wounds
Conclusion
About the Author
Michael Sledge is a freelance journalist and writer. He has extensively studied the sociology and psychology of the behavior of military personnel. He lives in Boulder County, Colorado."