Word: iraq
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Benjamin Lichtenwalner was working as a cook in the Marine Corps when he got word that his unit's mission was about to change - drastically. He spent two tours in Iraq working in "mortuary affairs," a job that took him all over the country to search for, recover and clean up the remains of fallen soldiers - one of the most important and gruesome yet least talked-about military assignments. TIME spoke with Lichtenwalner about his experiences and why he and fellow Marine Ryan Sawyer decided to launch a company called Biotrauma Inc. in their native Georgia that performs similar tasks...
...smell the stench of death. That was like the initial kick in the butt. Then after that, we had a month of classroom training. We would do mock search-and-recoveries out in the woods, looking for fallen soldiers Stateside before we were deployed. (See "A TIME Photographer's Iraq Diary...
...What was it like when you first got to Iraq and you went on your first mission? The first recovery that I went on - this was in '03 - it was in the city where Jessica Lynch was captured, Nasiriyah. What happened was you had two tanks rolling through the streets of this very crowded city. One tank was ambushed by insurgents, [and] the second tank called in for air support to quell the ambush. The plane that came in had a friendly-fire incident on the first tank, and 14 servicemen passed away...
...collect any evidence we can - dog tags, nameplates, paperwork. You would think that it'd be so simple, but it's not always so simple. Some guy could have a name tape on his blouse that says "Jackson," but you know when you're out in Iraq, clothes can sometimes be hard to come by, so sometimes you'd get a buddy loaning his shirt to another buddy, and that guy could get shot and pass away, and then the name he's got on his shirt isn't necessarily the right one. So we would try to collect these...
...with the leader of one of America's closest allies on March 24, a man whose climb to power in many ways mirrors his own. Like Obama, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd beat an older, more conservative rival to lead his country, riding a wave of opposition to the Iraq War and support for more action on issues such as health care and climate change. Both men are intellectuals from modest backgrounds, they lost fathers to car accidents at young ages, and a series of international crises are filling both their inboxes. Two of those Outback-sized dilemmas are expected...