(I edited this post to include the cover of our base weekly magazine. A picture was taken of one of our fallen warrior formations so you could see what it looks like. Because we cannot photograph the actual remains, you cannot see them, however if you look closely through some of the saluting arms, you can see the heads of our team carrying down one of the cases.)
This post may not interest many or may be too much information, but I wanted to share it because it was an important experience for me...I am writing this as much for myself as I am for anyone who may be intrigued by the process.
So, since the beginning of July we have had 24 fallen warriors come through Al Udeid. Last week, I was able to go out to the flightline for the first time and assist with the transfer of four of them. It was a humbling and truly emotional experience that I will never forget. One of them had arrived earlier in the day, and so around 3:30 PM, the team assembled and caravanned out to the flightline. The front car carried all of the individuals who would physically transfer the cases from the aircraft, and three white trucks (with enclosed backs) followed behind, one to transport each case from the plane to the facility where they would be prepared/stored until the new aircraft was ready to depart.
We arrived on the flightline and waited for the incoming C-17 aircraft to land. It was hot out there, as it is normally about 15-20 degrees hotter on the flightline since it is constructed of black asphalt and there are so many huge aircraft hanging around and creating heat. Once the aircraft landed, you could see many vehicles arriving on the flightline - the wing commander (a 1 star General who comes to every fallen warrior detail no matter what time of day or night), the vice wing commander, and much of the wing staff and operations group staff. In total, there were about 50 people who showed up to show their respects to the fallen.
The ramp in the rear of the aircraft opened and the cases were lined up through the middle of the aircraft one after the other, and were all covered in big, beautiful American flags. Once the cases were unsecured from the mechanisms that held them in place, all of the "spectators" (as they are called) were invited onto the aircraft via the ramp and one of our chaplains said a prayer. Then the people exited the aircraft and lined up on each side of the ramp, shoulder to shoulder. The general was closest to the ramp so that he could call orders. Each of the three trucks were lined up in front of the ramp, backs facing toward the aircraft. Each of the drivers and truck attendees (myself included) stood at the corners of the truck at attention. Our team of 5 carriers marched through the middle of it all, wearing black gloves, and walked up the ramp of the aircraft to the first case. As the case was lifted, the general called for us to salute - and everyone standing there would do a three second salute - where you raise your arm very slowly over three seconds and halt in salute form. The team then brought the first case down the ramp, the truck attendees opened the back doors, and the team placed the case in the back of one of the trucks. After the doors were closed, the general then called for everyone to release their salute. This same process continued for the remainder of the three cases, the last of which was placed in my truck.
Now, let me first say, this was an honor for me because typically civilians are not allowed to salute. But because I was a part of the detail, I was able to salute. And as the team came closer to my truck with the case in hand, marching in time with each other, I became overwhelmed by emotion. I couldn't show it, but I could feel my whole body shaking. We are at war, and the war is being played out right in front of my eyes. The case coming towards me was somebody's family. Their brother. Or dad. I was thinking that as we closed the doors of the truck and then drove away from the plane towards our next destination.
When we arrived at the refrigerated storage facility, everybody just jumped out of the trucks and started moving quickly - it was no longer just the team carrying the cases, it was all of us. So I opened the back of our truck and reached in and grabbed the back handle of one of the cases, and helped lift the case from the back of the truck into the facility. While most of these guys out there have done this several times and it is now a bit of a routine for them, every move I made I was hyper-aware of what was going on. As I grabbed the handle on the case I was thinking of the gravity of the situation and how surreal it all was that I was carrying the remains of someone who was killed at war. Once we were inside, we closed the doors to the facility and everyone got to work again.
Moving very quickly, the members of the team began removing the tops from the cases and setting them to the side. They had to quickly identify each individual using the information attached to their body bags, remove the old bags of ice used to keep them cool while in transit, replace with fresh ice, and re-attach the lids with new identifiers attached. They read aloud their names, their social security numbers, their ranks, their service (all Marines this time), and the unit they were attached to when they were attacked. One of the cases was only identified by "unknown" and we knew that there was most likely not a fourth person in that case but instead "disassociated parts" of the other three that would be matched up to them using DNA testing. It was so...surreal. It was haunting. It was important for me to see, because even over here, we sometimes forget the cost of war.
When we were done, we simply closed the doors behind us and drove off in our trucks back to our normal workday, leaving those three behind. The team would go back again later that night to load them onto a new plane for their long trip home, while I was asleep soundly in my bunk. I will never forget that day...and how could I? I saw the perils of war up close, and it was ugly. I don't think my heart will ever be the same.
So, since the beginning of July we have had 24 fallen warriors come through Al Udeid. Last week, I was able to go out to the flightline for the first time and assist with the transfer of four of them. It was a humbling and truly emotional experience that I will never forget. One of them had arrived earlier in the day, and so around 3:30 PM, the team assembled and caravanned out to the flightline. The front car carried all of the individuals who would physically transfer the cases from the aircraft, and three white trucks (with enclosed backs) followed behind, one to transport each case from the plane to the facility where they would be prepared/stored until the new aircraft was ready to depart.
We arrived on the flightline and waited for the incoming C-17 aircraft to land. It was hot out there, as it is normally about 15-20 degrees hotter on the flightline since it is constructed of black asphalt and there are so many huge aircraft hanging around and creating heat. Once the aircraft landed, you could see many vehicles arriving on the flightline - the wing commander (a 1 star General who comes to every fallen warrior detail no matter what time of day or night), the vice wing commander, and much of the wing staff and operations group staff. In total, there were about 50 people who showed up to show their respects to the fallen.
The ramp in the rear of the aircraft opened and the cases were lined up through the middle of the aircraft one after the other, and were all covered in big, beautiful American flags. Once the cases were unsecured from the mechanisms that held them in place, all of the "spectators" (as they are called) were invited onto the aircraft via the ramp and one of our chaplains said a prayer. Then the people exited the aircraft and lined up on each side of the ramp, shoulder to shoulder. The general was closest to the ramp so that he could call orders. Each of the three trucks were lined up in front of the ramp, backs facing toward the aircraft. Each of the drivers and truck attendees (myself included) stood at the corners of the truck at attention. Our team of 5 carriers marched through the middle of it all, wearing black gloves, and walked up the ramp of the aircraft to the first case. As the case was lifted, the general called for us to salute - and everyone standing there would do a three second salute - where you raise your arm very slowly over three seconds and halt in salute form. The team then brought the first case down the ramp, the truck attendees opened the back doors, and the team placed the case in the back of one of the trucks. After the doors were closed, the general then called for everyone to release their salute. This same process continued for the remainder of the three cases, the last of which was placed in my truck.
Now, let me first say, this was an honor for me because typically civilians are not allowed to salute. But because I was a part of the detail, I was able to salute. And as the team came closer to my truck with the case in hand, marching in time with each other, I became overwhelmed by emotion. I couldn't show it, but I could feel my whole body shaking. We are at war, and the war is being played out right in front of my eyes. The case coming towards me was somebody's family. Their brother. Or dad. I was thinking that as we closed the doors of the truck and then drove away from the plane towards our next destination.
When we arrived at the refrigerated storage facility, everybody just jumped out of the trucks and started moving quickly - it was no longer just the team carrying the cases, it was all of us. So I opened the back of our truck and reached in and grabbed the back handle of one of the cases, and helped lift the case from the back of the truck into the facility. While most of these guys out there have done this several times and it is now a bit of a routine for them, every move I made I was hyper-aware of what was going on. As I grabbed the handle on the case I was thinking of the gravity of the situation and how surreal it all was that I was carrying the remains of someone who was killed at war. Once we were inside, we closed the doors to the facility and everyone got to work again.
Moving very quickly, the members of the team began removing the tops from the cases and setting them to the side. They had to quickly identify each individual using the information attached to their body bags, remove the old bags of ice used to keep them cool while in transit, replace with fresh ice, and re-attach the lids with new identifiers attached. They read aloud their names, their social security numbers, their ranks, their service (all Marines this time), and the unit they were attached to when they were attacked. One of the cases was only identified by "unknown" and we knew that there was most likely not a fourth person in that case but instead "disassociated parts" of the other three that would be matched up to them using DNA testing. It was so...surreal. It was haunting. It was important for me to see, because even over here, we sometimes forget the cost of war.
When we were done, we simply closed the doors behind us and drove off in our trucks back to our normal workday, leaving those three behind. The team would go back again later that night to load them onto a new plane for their long trip home, while I was asleep soundly in my bunk. I will never forget that day...and how could I? I saw the perils of war up close, and it was ugly. I don't think my heart will ever be the same.
**********************************************************************************
The following is an article on the final transfer, much of the detail is
the same as we see here, minus the white gloves, the press, and the families:
the same as we see here, minus the white gloves, the press, and the families:
**********************************************************************************
USA TodayJuly 20, 2009
Pg. 1
As Wars' Death Toll Nears 5,000, Dover Shows Quiet Dignity
Families see fallen loved ones returned to Del. base
By Rick Hampson, USA Today
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. — Tonight, as always, the passengers stop talking when the van makes a sharp left on the tarmac and rolls toward the rear hatch of the C-17 transport. Now they see its cargo: two gleaming, 7-foot-long aluminum cases, each covered with an American flag.
Aaron Fairbairn, 20, and Justin Casillas, 19, who met at Army basic training last year in Georgia and died together this Fourth of July in Afghanistan, rest side by side on a lonely runway under a nearly full moon.
Aaron's half-brother, Beau Beck, is in the van with other members of the two privates' families. They have traveled across the continent to witness one of war's rawest moments — the return of the fallen to native soil.
Since hearing the news, Beck has half-believed there had been a mistake, that Aaron wasn't really killed in a Taliban attack. But now, seeing the cases, he almost gasps. This was the kid to whom he'd spoken on the phone 72 hours ago.
"At first you don't want to believe it," he said. "You think, 'It's not true, it's not true.' But that sight made it true. It was final."
The nation is approaching a combined total of 5,000 military deaths in Iraq, where the pace of U.S. casualties is declining, and in Afghanistan, where it is rising. All the remains have come through this air base, site of the nation's largest mortuary.
Since April, journalists have been permitted to cover what the military calls "dignified transfers" of bodies from incoming flights to the mortuary. And, in a less-publicized change at the same time, the government began to pay for relatives' travel here for such arrivals.
News organizations' interest or ability to cover routine transfers quickly faded; only the Associated Press regularly assigns a photographer.
But relatives — who previously were not encouraged by the military to attend the arrivals and rarely did — now are coming to more than 70% of them.
On one level, the families' presence has changed nothing.
Each transfer is carried out with the same exacting choreography, regardless of who's watching. But in feel, if not form, their presence changes everything.
His brother's homecoming was the toughest sight of Beau Beck's 32 years, but he's glad he was there.
"There was this overwhelming sense of honor and respect. You didn't have to know those two kids on the flight line to feel that," Beck says.
The blue van pulls up behind the transport plane, 25 feet off the tail. To the left, through the tinted windows, the soldiers' relatives can see a few journalists standing on the tarmac.
Because the families will watch while standing on the other side of the van, the journalists can't see them.
Fairbairn's mother and sister would decline to discuss the transfer, and efforts to reach Casilla's relatives for comment were unsuccessful. Beau Beck later agreed to talk, explaining, "It was terrible, but it was amazing."
'The Dover Test'
During the Vietnam War, images of flag-draped cases arriving at Dover (and Travis Air Force Base in California, until 2001 the military's other domestic mortuary) symbolized the war's terrible cost.
After Vietnam, American leaders contemplating military action began referring to "the Dover Test:" How would Americans react to those grim sights on the air and in print?
During the Gulf War, the first Bush administration prohibited news media coverage of returning casualties, supposedly in the interest of privacy. When the policy continued during the Iraq war, critics cried coverup.In 2004, Joe Biden, then a senator from Delaware, said the fallen "are essentially snuck back into the country under the cover of night, so no one can see that their casket has arrived."
This year the Obama administration re-opened the arrivals to journalists, provided families approve. (About seven in 10 have.)
Defense Secretary Robert Gates had expressed concern that if the news media covered transfers at Dover, relatives would feel compelled to attend — a financial hardship for some who lived far away. So his department decided to pay and help arrange travel, food and lodging for up to three people per family.
Beck was surprised by the offer, which he and his family quickly accepted.
To his right tonight on the tarmac is a white truck, waiting to move the transfer cases to the base mortuary. Beck thinks it looks like a bread truck.
Seven members of an Army ceremonial unit — six bearers and a team leader — march past him and up a ramp into the hold of the huge steel-gray aircraft.
They're joined by a chaplain, an Air Force colonel and an Army brigadier general from the Pentagon, Francis Mahon.
Mahon is director of the Army's Quadrennial Defense Review — a big-picture guy, who works far from the battlefield.
He's there because the Army chief of staff has ordered that a general officer be present for the arrival of every soldier's remains.
"This reminds you there are lives at the end of decisions," Mahon says. "Everything you do affects a soldier."
In 30 years in the Army, Mahon has seen a lot of pomp — 21-gun salutes, Taps, flag presentations. This is different.
It's not a ceremony, in military terminology, but a "dignified transfer."
The remains are not in coffins but "cases." They are escorted not by an honor guard, but a "carry team."
Everything is functional — no speeches, music or dress blues. The carry team wears camouflage fatigues, combat boots, black berets and, in one concession to ceremony, white gloves.
That, Beck thinks, is what makes this so powerful — it's so real.
'America cares deeply'
In the cargo hold, a chaplain, Maj. Klavens Noel, reads a prayer over the bodies of Fairbairn and Casillas, which have come from Afghanistan via Kuwait and Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.
The families cannot hear but see heads bent in prayer as Noel begins: "Almighty God, we thank you for the freedom we enjoy in our nation as we welcome Privates Casillas and Fairbairn home this evening. We pray that they may rest in peace. We pray for their family members, that they may find comfort in knowing that America cares deeply. We pray for their comrades on the battlefield ..."
Time to move the cases. First is Casillas, a former high school football lineman from Dunnigan, Calif., who always played bigger than his 175 pounds, and played hurt if he had to.
Friends and former teachers recall the teen's patriotism — he hung a flag in his room — and passion for the military.
A month before he left for Afghanistan, he dropped by his high school. His coach, Roy Perkins, said he thought it was good to see someone achieve what he'd always wanted.
Packed with ice, his case weighs about 400 pounds. The team leader calls, "Ready, lift" and the team members, facing each other, grasp the case. On "Ready, up" they straighten, lifting it. On "Ready, face," three soldiers do a left face, the other three a right face. Now all are facing toward the tail and out into the night, toward the bread truck, whose doors are open, waiting.
On "Ready, step" the team moves forward toward the ramp.
On the ground, the colonel says "Present, arms!" His voice is low, crisp. Each military servicemember slowly lifts a right arm in salute — three seconds up — and holds it as the team carries the case 46 steps across the tarmac to the truck.
Their pace is exaggeratedly — almost agonizingly — slow.
The families stand behind a rope line, like outside a nightclub. They've been told not to try to come forward to touch the case. But they never take their eyes off it.
This is the moment in the transfer when knees buckle and hearts flutter, when children wail and mothers scream. Tonight, there are racking sobs — "the sounds that ring in my nights," says David Sparks, a military chaplain standing with the families.
Most of the relatives, he says, arrive on the flight line still in shock: "Someone's come to the door and told them something, but they don't really believe it until they see for themselves." They haven't even begun to grieve, so he doesn't go much beyond a greeting, a hug and, 'I'm so very sorry.' "
As the carry team approaches the truck, they stop, march in place, turn toward each other and, on the command, "Ready, step!" push the case forward into the truck and onto its metal rollers, which make a clanging sound as the case moves forward.
At the command, "Order, arms" salutes are lowered — three seconds down.
The team takes six steps back, does an about face and marches back to the plane for the second case — Aaron's.
'Always with a smile'
Aaron Fairbairn joined the Army because he wanted to make a difference, because he wanted to learn a skill and because he didn't really have any better options.
"He was just a nice kid — hard-working, fun-loving, always with a smile," Beck says. Because he was 12 years older and Aaron's biological father was "out of the picture," Beck says he felt as much like the kid's dad as his brother.
Aaron had drifted a bit after high school, working at a pizza shop and a car dealership. When Aaron told him he planned to enlist, Beck was surprised and unenthusiastic: It was wartime.
"He wasn't gung-ho," Beck recalls. "He was a pretty peaceful kid. He didn't want to fight unless he had to. He just wanted to do his job. ... He'd do what you told him to do, and he wouldn't show a lot of emotion."
Aaron left for Afghanistan in March and wound up at a combat post in the eastern province of Paktika. Except for one mission early on, he told his family that military life consisted mostly of post duty, watching videos they'd sent him and working out. He was never athletic but had bulked up to 155 pounds from his induction weight of 115, and boasted of bench-pressing 275 pounds.
Beck got a call from Aaron late Friday afternoon, July 3. Things were quiet; the action was down south, in Helmand province, where the Marines were on the march. If anything, he was a little bored.
Later that day, the Taliban attacked.
Saturday morning, an Army chaplain and sergeant were on his mother's porch in Aberdeen, Wash. When she saw them standing there, Shelley Masters thought that because it was Independence Day, maybe they were there to raise funds or something.
That night she, Beau and her 21-year-old daughter, Sascha, took the red-eye to Philadelphia.
Final salute
When the last case is placed in the bread truck, Senior Airman Joseph Holton must close the truck's door — given its symbolism, the most sensitive part of the ritual.
Transfer detail team members are selected by their predecessors, after watching them perform a test drill. Holton and another airman were chosen from a group of 40.
He must make unnaturally slow movements look natural, even though the tendency is to speed up — especially with the families and the news media watching, and his adrenaline pumping.
So as he walks, Holton later explains, he paces himself by counting in his head. He times his steps to his breathing — inhale on heel down, exhale on heel up. He moves so deliberately as to seem to extend time itself.
Without appearing to, Holton must brace for the unforeseen, such as a gust of wind that could blow the door shut.
He tries to block out anything that might distract him from the precise execution of his otherwise workaday task, including the families. Recently, a mother fell to the tarmac, pounding the ground and screaming, "Don't close the doors!"
Holton tries not to look, but he sees the relatives when he does a left face to close the left door and a right face to close the right door.
Finally, the doors are closed. When the driver turns the ignition, the colonel orders, "Present arms" to signal a final salute. The truck rolls forward. At "Order arms" the salutes are lowered.
The truck rolls slowly off to the mortuary, where the bodies will be scanned for explosives, checked for personal effects, positively identified, autopsied, embalmed, dressed in a blue Class A dress uniform bearing the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Combat Infantry Badge and airborne wings, and placed in a steel casket.
Back on the tarmac, Aaron Fairbairn's mother, brother and sister form a tight circle, hugging and sobbing. Their soldier is home.
Contributing: Paul Overberg
Toll of Iraq, Afghanistan wars
Milestones in the combined U.S. death tolls for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:
July 24, 2004 -- 1,000 (909: Iraq, 91: Afghanistan)
Aug. 8, 2005 (multiple casualties on that day) -- 2,000 (1,832: Iraq, 171: Afghanistan)
Oct. 4, 2006 -- 3,000 (2,729: Iraq, 271: Afghanistan)
Aug. 5, 2007 (multiple casualties on that day) -- 4,000 (3,654: Iraq, 348: Afghanistan)
Friday -- 4,996 (includes Defense Dept. civilians) (4,328: Iraq, 668: Afghanistan)
Source: Defense Department
Pg. 1
As Wars' Death Toll Nears 5,000, Dover Shows Quiet Dignity
Families see fallen loved ones returned to Del. base
By Rick Hampson, USA Today
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. — Tonight, as always, the passengers stop talking when the van makes a sharp left on the tarmac and rolls toward the rear hatch of the C-17 transport. Now they see its cargo: two gleaming, 7-foot-long aluminum cases, each covered with an American flag.
Aaron Fairbairn, 20, and Justin Casillas, 19, who met at Army basic training last year in Georgia and died together this Fourth of July in Afghanistan, rest side by side on a lonely runway under a nearly full moon.
Aaron's half-brother, Beau Beck, is in the van with other members of the two privates' families. They have traveled across the continent to witness one of war's rawest moments — the return of the fallen to native soil.
Since hearing the news, Beck has half-believed there had been a mistake, that Aaron wasn't really killed in a Taliban attack. But now, seeing the cases, he almost gasps. This was the kid to whom he'd spoken on the phone 72 hours ago.
"At first you don't want to believe it," he said. "You think, 'It's not true, it's not true.' But that sight made it true. It was final."
The nation is approaching a combined total of 5,000 military deaths in Iraq, where the pace of U.S. casualties is declining, and in Afghanistan, where it is rising. All the remains have come through this air base, site of the nation's largest mortuary.
Since April, journalists have been permitted to cover what the military calls "dignified transfers" of bodies from incoming flights to the mortuary. And, in a less-publicized change at the same time, the government began to pay for relatives' travel here for such arrivals.
News organizations' interest or ability to cover routine transfers quickly faded; only the Associated Press regularly assigns a photographer.
But relatives — who previously were not encouraged by the military to attend the arrivals and rarely did — now are coming to more than 70% of them.
On one level, the families' presence has changed nothing.
Each transfer is carried out with the same exacting choreography, regardless of who's watching. But in feel, if not form, their presence changes everything.
His brother's homecoming was the toughest sight of Beau Beck's 32 years, but he's glad he was there.
"There was this overwhelming sense of honor and respect. You didn't have to know those two kids on the flight line to feel that," Beck says.
The blue van pulls up behind the transport plane, 25 feet off the tail. To the left, through the tinted windows, the soldiers' relatives can see a few journalists standing on the tarmac.
Because the families will watch while standing on the other side of the van, the journalists can't see them.
Fairbairn's mother and sister would decline to discuss the transfer, and efforts to reach Casilla's relatives for comment were unsuccessful. Beau Beck later agreed to talk, explaining, "It was terrible, but it was amazing."
'The Dover Test'
During the Vietnam War, images of flag-draped cases arriving at Dover (and Travis Air Force Base in California, until 2001 the military's other domestic mortuary) symbolized the war's terrible cost.
After Vietnam, American leaders contemplating military action began referring to "the Dover Test:" How would Americans react to those grim sights on the air and in print?
During the Gulf War, the first Bush administration prohibited news media coverage of returning casualties, supposedly in the interest of privacy. When the policy continued during the Iraq war, critics cried coverup.In 2004, Joe Biden, then a senator from Delaware, said the fallen "are essentially snuck back into the country under the cover of night, so no one can see that their casket has arrived."
This year the Obama administration re-opened the arrivals to journalists, provided families approve. (About seven in 10 have.)
Defense Secretary Robert Gates had expressed concern that if the news media covered transfers at Dover, relatives would feel compelled to attend — a financial hardship for some who lived far away. So his department decided to pay and help arrange travel, food and lodging for up to three people per family.
Beck was surprised by the offer, which he and his family quickly accepted.
To his right tonight on the tarmac is a white truck, waiting to move the transfer cases to the base mortuary. Beck thinks it looks like a bread truck.
Seven members of an Army ceremonial unit — six bearers and a team leader — march past him and up a ramp into the hold of the huge steel-gray aircraft.
They're joined by a chaplain, an Air Force colonel and an Army brigadier general from the Pentagon, Francis Mahon.
Mahon is director of the Army's Quadrennial Defense Review — a big-picture guy, who works far from the battlefield.
He's there because the Army chief of staff has ordered that a general officer be present for the arrival of every soldier's remains.
"This reminds you there are lives at the end of decisions," Mahon says. "Everything you do affects a soldier."
In 30 years in the Army, Mahon has seen a lot of pomp — 21-gun salutes, Taps, flag presentations. This is different.
It's not a ceremony, in military terminology, but a "dignified transfer."
The remains are not in coffins but "cases." They are escorted not by an honor guard, but a "carry team."
Everything is functional — no speeches, music or dress blues. The carry team wears camouflage fatigues, combat boots, black berets and, in one concession to ceremony, white gloves.
That, Beck thinks, is what makes this so powerful — it's so real.
'America cares deeply'
In the cargo hold, a chaplain, Maj. Klavens Noel, reads a prayer over the bodies of Fairbairn and Casillas, which have come from Afghanistan via Kuwait and Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.
The families cannot hear but see heads bent in prayer as Noel begins: "Almighty God, we thank you for the freedom we enjoy in our nation as we welcome Privates Casillas and Fairbairn home this evening. We pray that they may rest in peace. We pray for their family members, that they may find comfort in knowing that America cares deeply. We pray for their comrades on the battlefield ..."
Time to move the cases. First is Casillas, a former high school football lineman from Dunnigan, Calif., who always played bigger than his 175 pounds, and played hurt if he had to.
Friends and former teachers recall the teen's patriotism — he hung a flag in his room — and passion for the military.
A month before he left for Afghanistan, he dropped by his high school. His coach, Roy Perkins, said he thought it was good to see someone achieve what he'd always wanted.
Packed with ice, his case weighs about 400 pounds. The team leader calls, "Ready, lift" and the team members, facing each other, grasp the case. On "Ready, up" they straighten, lifting it. On "Ready, face," three soldiers do a left face, the other three a right face. Now all are facing toward the tail and out into the night, toward the bread truck, whose doors are open, waiting.
On "Ready, step" the team moves forward toward the ramp.
On the ground, the colonel says "Present, arms!" His voice is low, crisp. Each military servicemember slowly lifts a right arm in salute — three seconds up — and holds it as the team carries the case 46 steps across the tarmac to the truck.
Their pace is exaggeratedly — almost agonizingly — slow.
The families stand behind a rope line, like outside a nightclub. They've been told not to try to come forward to touch the case. But they never take their eyes off it.
This is the moment in the transfer when knees buckle and hearts flutter, when children wail and mothers scream. Tonight, there are racking sobs — "the sounds that ring in my nights," says David Sparks, a military chaplain standing with the families.
Most of the relatives, he says, arrive on the flight line still in shock: "Someone's come to the door and told them something, but they don't really believe it until they see for themselves." They haven't even begun to grieve, so he doesn't go much beyond a greeting, a hug and, 'I'm so very sorry.' "
As the carry team approaches the truck, they stop, march in place, turn toward each other and, on the command, "Ready, step!" push the case forward into the truck and onto its metal rollers, which make a clanging sound as the case moves forward.
At the command, "Order, arms" salutes are lowered — three seconds down.
The team takes six steps back, does an about face and marches back to the plane for the second case — Aaron's.
'Always with a smile'
Aaron Fairbairn joined the Army because he wanted to make a difference, because he wanted to learn a skill and because he didn't really have any better options.
"He was just a nice kid — hard-working, fun-loving, always with a smile," Beck says. Because he was 12 years older and Aaron's biological father was "out of the picture," Beck says he felt as much like the kid's dad as his brother.
Aaron had drifted a bit after high school, working at a pizza shop and a car dealership. When Aaron told him he planned to enlist, Beck was surprised and unenthusiastic: It was wartime.
"He wasn't gung-ho," Beck recalls. "He was a pretty peaceful kid. He didn't want to fight unless he had to. He just wanted to do his job. ... He'd do what you told him to do, and he wouldn't show a lot of emotion."
Aaron left for Afghanistan in March and wound up at a combat post in the eastern province of Paktika. Except for one mission early on, he told his family that military life consisted mostly of post duty, watching videos they'd sent him and working out. He was never athletic but had bulked up to 155 pounds from his induction weight of 115, and boasted of bench-pressing 275 pounds.
Beck got a call from Aaron late Friday afternoon, July 3. Things were quiet; the action was down south, in Helmand province, where the Marines were on the march. If anything, he was a little bored.
Later that day, the Taliban attacked.
Saturday morning, an Army chaplain and sergeant were on his mother's porch in Aberdeen, Wash. When she saw them standing there, Shelley Masters thought that because it was Independence Day, maybe they were there to raise funds or something.
That night she, Beau and her 21-year-old daughter, Sascha, took the red-eye to Philadelphia.
Final salute
When the last case is placed in the bread truck, Senior Airman Joseph Holton must close the truck's door — given its symbolism, the most sensitive part of the ritual.
Transfer detail team members are selected by their predecessors, after watching them perform a test drill. Holton and another airman were chosen from a group of 40.
He must make unnaturally slow movements look natural, even though the tendency is to speed up — especially with the families and the news media watching, and his adrenaline pumping.
So as he walks, Holton later explains, he paces himself by counting in his head. He times his steps to his breathing — inhale on heel down, exhale on heel up. He moves so deliberately as to seem to extend time itself.
Without appearing to, Holton must brace for the unforeseen, such as a gust of wind that could blow the door shut.
He tries to block out anything that might distract him from the precise execution of his otherwise workaday task, including the families. Recently, a mother fell to the tarmac, pounding the ground and screaming, "Don't close the doors!"
Holton tries not to look, but he sees the relatives when he does a left face to close the left door and a right face to close the right door.
Finally, the doors are closed. When the driver turns the ignition, the colonel orders, "Present arms" to signal a final salute. The truck rolls forward. At "Order arms" the salutes are lowered.
The truck rolls slowly off to the mortuary, where the bodies will be scanned for explosives, checked for personal effects, positively identified, autopsied, embalmed, dressed in a blue Class A dress uniform bearing the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Combat Infantry Badge and airborne wings, and placed in a steel casket.
Back on the tarmac, Aaron Fairbairn's mother, brother and sister form a tight circle, hugging and sobbing. Their soldier is home.
Contributing: Paul Overberg
Toll of Iraq, Afghanistan wars
Milestones in the combined U.S. death tolls for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:
July 24, 2004 -- 1,000 (909: Iraq, 91: Afghanistan)
Aug. 8, 2005 (multiple casualties on that day) -- 2,000 (1,832: Iraq, 171: Afghanistan)
Oct. 4, 2006 -- 3,000 (2,729: Iraq, 271: Afghanistan)
Aug. 5, 2007 (multiple casualties on that day) -- 4,000 (3,654: Iraq, 348: Afghanistan)
Friday -- 4,996 (includes Defense Dept. civilians) (4,328: Iraq, 668: Afghanistan)
Source: Defense Department
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