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DEAD SOLDIERS RETURN HOME On June 16, US soldiers honored three comrades, including a woman, who died in a plane crash in southeastern Afghanistan. A US Military MC-130H special operations aircraft packed with electronic equipment crashed near Bande Sardeh Dam, just after taking off from an air base near Gardez. There were seven survivors, but three troops, Sgt. Sean Corlew, 37, Sgt Anissa Shero, 31, and Sgt. Peter Tycz II, 32, were killed. Shero was the second woman among 40 US troops killed in direct combat or accidents in and around Afghanistan since the war began. It is windy and overcast, more like the Maine coast than Afghanistan's plains. Goosebumps stand out on my arm. A thick crowd of about 100 US soldiers have turned out to pay their respects. On the runway, two files of soldiers stand eye to eye, about 12 feet apart. American flags on a patch on every shoulder. Silence. Waiting. Salutes past the wire, outside a green tent, signal that the bodies are in transit. The corpses have been laid out in aluminum coffins in the tent. I see a casket wrapped with the American flag, borne by six soldiers walking in lockstep. The men and their burden receive salutes all around. They slide the coffin into what can only be described as a beat-up, white Chevy pickup. The tailgate is down, waiting. The men solemnly lay the box on the lip of the truck bed, and pass it hand over hand until it rests squarely in the back. They shut the tailgate softly. Another coffin, six more pallbearers, and another truck, this one a late model Chevy F150. After a very short pause, a third appears and is slid into another new F150. Two men with rifles head the procession is headed by two men with rifles. A man carrying an American flag with a gold fringe on the end of a long wooden pole marches between them. The flag stands straight out, sustained by the stiff wind. Behind, two buglers, wearing ISAF uniforms. They're Brits. A slow walk. Approaching the files of troops, a man calls out, and salutes are raised. The trucks clank across sheets of battered metal that span a ditch and pull onto a runway. Three trucks pass the gauntlet of saluting soldiers slowly; the double-file honor guard remains standing frozen on both sides of the moving vehicles. Long after the trucks have left the alley between the solemn troops, a commanding officer barks a command, and the salutes come down. While the trucks continue on down the runway, the soldiers don't flinch, don't move a muscle, stay staring at the man straight across from them. The trucks back up and one by one, the coffins are unloaded and walked into the gaping maw of a C-17. The mouth closes, and the bugles ring out their simple, sad tune. And then away. An order is barked out, and the soldiers break ranks, walk back to the tents. Colonel King insists on helping a TV crew member with his bag--solicitousness unbefitting his high rank. Then he stops the media van as we make our way back to the press tent. "I just wanted to thank you all for coming out," he says. It's awkward. No one has anything to say. King's sentimental, maybe, but he's 100% soldier, with a buzzed skull, a leathery neck and a stiff military bearing. The ghost plane is traveling to a military base in Germany, and from there back home to the United States. I wonder if there's anyone in the back with the bodies. |
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