Iraq Mission Became Life's Mission

They learned the trade that they now pursue with a passion -- and compassion -- in a place often characterized by violence.

Ryan Sawyer and Ben Lichtenwalner were assigned to the 4th Marine Logistics Group’s Headquarters Company, based in Marietta, Ga., when they were separately called up to work. But neither of them were tabbed to do the jobs they’d trained to do -- truck-driving for Sawyer and cooking for Lichtenwalner – but instead they were called to do the unenviable  job of mortuary affairs.

Their work in war-torn Iraq would be to recover the remains of fellow American troops.

Today, the two own a 10-person company -- Biotrauma Inc. -- in Gainesville, Ga., and seven-days-a-week, 365-days a year, they follow on the heels of first responders and investigators to clean up after violent or natural deaths.

"Over in Iraq we learned so much about death and all the emotions that go along with death," said Sawyer, a 24-year-old former lance corporal. "We would bring a body back to a collection point, and while processing there, there would be comrades of the service member, and we'd be talking with them, dealing with an array of emotions."

"I didn't even really want to be a cook," said 27-year-old Lichtenwalner, a former sergeant who first went to Iraq as mortuary affairs in 2003. "And then [this assignment] came along and I sort of resisted it at first -- who in their right mind wants to be around this stuff? But then I realized I had the skills to do it ... It was something I became proud of."

His next deployment was in 2005, and that's when he met Sawyer and the two came to realize just how important their mission was, and the importance of compassion when dealing with survivors. It didn't matter that the dead troops’ buddies were themselves combat vets, according to Sawyer, these people wanted to see their fallen friend's remains recovered and respected. They wanted things done right.

They also came to see that what they were doing in Iraq they could do at home, where regular people are confronted at times with death in their homes -- whether from malicious violence, suicide, accident or illness -- and do not know what to do.

"And we found that in 80 percent of all these types of situations ... the scenes were being cleaned up by [the deceased's] families," Sawyer said. "That's when we realized that you have to go in and provide a compassionate service -- you can't just go into a scene of a homicide, suicide or natural death and provide the physical side of a clean-up. You're there in somebody's home, where people loved that person you're cleaning the remains of. You can't be all about the physical side -- you've got to be about the emotional side, too."

Their company meets that need, Sawyer added, by doing its work as quickly and out-of-public view as professionalism allows, while also relieving family members of dealing with some of the corporate necessities of the clean-up.

On the job, he said, his company works out of unmarked vehicles and, whenever possible, dons their protective clothes out of the public eye. They also do not leave a job until finished, so that it does not carry over into a second day.

"That's important to families, because they want that out of their home quickly," he said.

Cost for their services can run from $500 up to $6,000, he said, depending on the circumstances of the death and the scope of the clean up. Was it an unattended death with minimal hemorrhaging and decomposition? Did it involve a firearm? Was there a great deal of bleeding? Did it go through carpet and floorboards?

Considering his Marine experiences and line of work these days, Sawyer recognized the Corps can take you in a direction you never expected.

"You go into the military, you have it all figured out in your head,” Sawyer said. “But it never goes that way. ... You may have a vision of what it's going to be like but there's no way to tell."

He thought he’d be a Marine Reservist who would merely did his one-week-a-month and two-weeks-in the summer duty and pursue other interests. Before his activation he was at the University of West Georgia and rushing Chi Phi fraternity.

He recalls being outside the frat house, holding a drink in a red plastic cup, when he got the call about being activated to do mortuary affairs.

"I realized things are not going to go as I planed. I'm not going to just drive trucks for the Marine Corps, but driving trucks with fallen U.S. service members in them," he said. "I was 20 years old at the time. It was definitely an eye opener."

Lichtenwalner calls the work rewarding. "I feel what we're doing here is like a personal calling in life, that we're helping out all these people who otherwise would be cleaning up these scenarios themselves."