Mortuary Affairs
Mortuary Affairs is a service within the United States Army Quartermaster Corps tasked with the recovery, identification, transportation, and preparation for burial of deceased American and American-allied military personnel.
The current Army Military Occupational Specialty for the career field is 92A (a general code for officers across the Quartermaster Corps) with a 4-Victor qualification course completion and 92M for enlisted personnel.
Retrieval can be further subdivided into: The role of the Mortuary Affairs service is legally defined in 10 USC, subtitle A, Chapter 75, Subchapter I, section 1471.
The American Civil War marked the first time the United States made a concerted effort to identify fallen soldiers.
"Quartermaster General Marshall I. Ludington spoke words that became a harbinger of U.S. retrieval efforts in major world conflicts only a few years later.
He said the efforts of the Quartermaster Corps in the Spanish–American War were most likely the first attempt of a nation to "disinter the remains of all its soldiers who, in defense of their country, had given up their lives on a foreign shore, and bring them... to their native land for return to their relatives and friends or their reinternment in the beautiful cemeteries which have been provided by our Government for its defenders.
"[7] During the Philippine–American War, the Burial Corps and United States Army Morgue and Office of Identification had overlapping responsibilities for care of the dead.
The Graves registration service was created by General Order #104, issued on August 7, 1917, four months after the United States entered World War I.
[11] "As the conflict grew in intensity, and deaths of United Nations personnel increased, it became necessary for each combat division to establish and operate its own cemetery, pending the arrival of graves registration companies from the zone of interior to assume this responsibility."
[14] Better transportation, communication, and laboratory techniques allowed a higher rate of body identification in the Vietnam War than in previous conflicts.
The Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs at Dover Air Force Base is where remains of those killed in action are processed and returned home.
Another small group will work with the 246th or 311th Quartermaster Company from Puerto Rico, a Reserve Mortuary Affairs unit, in Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, at the Joint Personal Effects Depot (JPED).
"[21] Anecdotal evidence also suggests that those involved with the removal and disposal of war-dead often have to deal with a great amount of psychological pressure later on in their lives, as well as at the time of their duties.
