Soldier Dead: How We Recover, Bury, and Honor Our Military Fallen (review)

Michael Sledge, a journalist with a background in sociology, psychology, and the behavior of military personnel, has written an engaging but sobering account of how the United States deals with dead military personnel. As an embedded journalist with the Army's 54th Mortuary Affairs Company during the 2003 Iraq War, he also brings first-hand knowledge of the process. Sledge concentrates on policies, procedures, and practice during World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, with additional evidence presented from the Civil War through the invasion of Iraq. The book explores in considerable and enlightening detail the question: "What happens to members of the United States Armed Forces after they die [explicitly die in combat]"?

The account consists of eight chapters mostly relating to clearly defined topics: "why it matters," "non-combat recoveries," "combat recoveries," "identification," "the return of the dead," "burial," "all bodies are not the same," and "open wounds." The chapters on recoveries, identification, return of remains, and burial, all are well developed, largely chronologically, and are based on archival research and published primary sources. Throughout the work, Sledge offers "author's notes" at the end of each chapter, often based on his observations as an embedded reporter in Iraq. These are unhistorical, but often a careful corrective nudge to the bureaucracy that it could and should do better.

Sledge's most interesting chapters are the first, "why it matters," and the last two, "all bodies are not the same," and "open wounds." "It," retrieving and honoring battle dead, matters, according to Sledge, because "there does seem to be a universal theme that reverberates through the centuries: humans want to see their dead, if at all possible. Only then is the passing of a loved one real" (p. 28). His account makes clear in a very moving way that for the survivors, whether next of kin, comrades, or those who must process the remains, much that is connected to "soldier dead" rubs emotions raw. The chapter titled "all bodies are not the same" delineates in some detail how American personnel did not always follow the graves registration manual that states: "Records of the burial of enemy dead will be made as complete as for American dead" (p. 241). In the final chapter, "open wounds," Sledge raises questions about a number of diverse topics such as how the military notifies next of kin, controversies over unrecovered remains and discrepancies in casualty accounting, and the psychological impact on military graves registration personnel of performing their significant but frequently gruesome duties. In sum, this is a fine work that, although not exactly military history, should be widely read by military historians.