Word: missionize
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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...
TIME: How did you first react to your unit's new mission? Lichtenwalner: It was a shock, but of course, when I joined the Marine Corps, I anticipated having to be around death. I wasn't really crazy about being a cook, but when they switched our job up, I wasn't really crazy about doing [mortuary affairs] either. [Laughs.] But I was prepared to be around death, and once we got started, there was really no turning back. I realized just how important a mission Ryan and I both had. We kind of viewed it as a calling. Just...
...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...
...increasingly caught in the middle even as it continues its military mission against die-hard insurgents in places like Mosul, mindful of the fast-approaching deadline to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraqi cities by the end of June, ahead of a complete pullout by 2011. "I don't know if I'm a mediator," says Colonel Gary Volesky, brigade commander of the 3rd Heavy Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, stationed in Mosul, adding that his mission was to rout out insurgents. Still, Kurdish leaders, including Nechirvan Barzani, Prime Minister of Kurdistan, have said they want the U.S. to stay...
...century B.C., made of Syrian ivory, overlaid with gold, inlaid with lapis lazuli and carnelian. It is still missing. It's always a painful reminder to me, and until each and every piece that has been stolen from the museum is returned, I will have considered my mission in Iraq to have been a failure. When the Iraqi people have everything returned to display in a museum open to all. That's how I define success...