TACOMA (AP) — Airmen from Washington’s Joint Base Lewis-McChord have regularly traveled to Delaware to help handle the bodies of slain military service members, but that task may be coming to an end.
The News Tribune reported that teams of JBLM airmen have frequently been called upon to round out the Air Force mortuary staff at Dover Air Force Base since 2001. The Air Force no longer needs that connection because the pace of the war has slowed.
Tech. Sgt. Loren Wells has recently returned from Dover Air Force Base. He’s done just about every job on Dover’s mortuary team, including making travel arrangements, minding the personal belongings of slain troops and embalming bodies.
He calls the assignment the “best and the worst job in the Air Force.”
