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What does the military do with dead bodies?
Mortuary Affairs is a service within the United States Army Quartermaster Corps tasked with the retrieval, identification, transportation, and burial of deceased American and American-allied military personnel.
How we bury the war dead?
In areas of active combat, troops would bury their fallen comrades where they fell, often in a shallow grave marked only with a large rock, a stick, or a rifle with its bayonet thrust into the ground. In a pinch, a shallow trench or shell crater would do; these bodies would be exhumed later and reburied.
Can you be a mortician in the Air Force?
AFMAO is a Field Operating Agency under the Deputy Chief of Staff, Manpower, Personnel and Services, Headquarters Air Force. AFMAO provides global contingency mortuary response teams in support of Air Force and combatant command requirements, supporting both an Air Force and joint role.
How are veterans buried in the military?
The veteran is either interred horizontally in the ground inside a casket, or he/she is cremated. I do military funeral honors for the Navy at Washington’s Crossing National Cemetery. The saying you may have heard “they go in feet first” refers to the orientation of the casket being carried to the grave site.
What are the customs and traditions of a military funeral?
Military Funeral Customs and Traditions. As with the military itself, our armed forces’ final farewell to comrades is steeped in tradition and ceremony. Prominent in a military funeral is the flag-draped casket. The blue field of the flag is placed at the head of the casket, over the left shoulder of the deceased.
How were the bodies of Union soldiers buried?
After the war, collecting from Union commanders whatever burial records were available, he sent teams of soldiers throughout the South and into Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the West to collect the dead from their battlefield gravesites, identify the bodies, then give each a proper burial in a spot of honor.
Why are there two coffins in a cemetery?
Answer Wiki. Veterans are buried in concrete vaults, which are very much like bunk beds; because their spouses are allowed to be buried with them, all modern veteran graves are built to accommodate two coffins, and to do so without disturbing whoever dies first.