![]() “Where do we find such men and women who prize liberty and freedom over the risk to their lives, and who knowing the price they might have to pay, are willing to volunteer for the mission, put on the uniform and serve in harm’s way?” he prayed that day. “One Suicide May 2005” references loved ones of the soldier “whose confusion is overwhelming and whose sorrow is deeper than we can begin to imagine.” “Christmas Eve 2004” notes the irreparable imprint left on the family of the Marines “for whom Christmas future will always bring back the awful memory.” “40 Transfer Cases (Jan 05),” marvels at the enormity of what the victims gave their country, calling it “the price of freedom.” He saves them in Word files named for something defining about the day. The military calls the movement of remains, from planes onto grey Ford cargo vans with the silhouette of saluting servicemembers painted on the back, “dignified transfers.” Aside from the quiet commands of seven-member honor guards who carry the boxes, the short prayers of the chaplain typically are the only words spoken during the ritual, and feeling the weight of such a responsibility, Sparks wrote a new one for each of the more than 400 times he was called to that duty. Red Sox paraphernalia and bereavement books line his desk and his computer is a repository for the prayers he slid into the acetate sleeves of a small photo album and read aboard or beside the plane when remains arrived, covered by flags, in aluminum crates. Sparks’ office is off an atrium that houses a koi pond and is crowned by a curved glass roof that mimics the huts of the base’s first mortuary. “But with every remain, whether it’s a fingernail, a hand or the whole torso, it’s the same dignity, honor and respect.” Alice Briones, a former combat medic who went on to become a forensic pathologist and now runs the military’s medical examiner system. “All we receive may be a hand or a leg,” says Air Force Col. He was able to shift his focus from what lay before him in the morgue, a scene that was often jarring. Dying congregants kept him in and out of hospices and hospitals for years. As a seminarian, he volunteered as a pallbearer, and as a young minister, he shadowed a mortician friend at work. Though Sparks had rarely spent time at the mortuary before 9/11, he found he was unwittingly prepared. “You had to learn how to cope with that amount of death.” It was a firehose,” says Electa Wright, a former Air Force reservist who is now a civilian mortuary worker. Chaplains, in turn, were swamped as the work took its toll on the staff. The staff raced to keep up as remains arrived almost daily. “Normal conversation,” he says, “in an abnormal venue.”Īt the height of the war, the pace at the mortuary could be staggering. If they needed help moving a body, he’d pitch in, but mostly he talked with workers about their cat or their crazy ex-girlfriend or anything that would get their mind off the horror laid before them on a gurney. He’d don a white Tyvek suit and draw a black cross on the breast, standing by as x-ray technicians, dentists and medical examiners worked on remains. He found himself with a life entwined with death. Weeks turned to months, one war turned to two, and by the time Sparks submitted his resignation from pastoring a third time, the church board accepted. He was called to active duty and assigned to the mortuary, where the Pentagon’s dead were being brought, and where he was to be a source of solace for those charged with the somber task of identifying, autopsying and preparing the dead. By the time he’d been at it for 21 years, he’d risen to lieutenant colonel and was starting to think about his military retirement.
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