“This flag is presented on behalf of a grateful nation and the United States Army in appreciation for your loved one’s honorable and faithful service.”
Service owner, mourners leave
Collins buries the body
Gail Bond sits at church
Needs a cigarette
Bond’s losses
Those who remain (in the church)
Why they came
What one could learn about Joey
David and Tim Barclay introduced
3 mile procession assembles
“the biggest we’ve seen”–decide to shut down highway
The Patriot Guard
Sergeant Charles Dunaway (who carries medals and accompanies hearse) introduced
Procession begins
Townspeople observe
Joey used to work at the steel forge and looked like that mechanic
Joey’s best friend Ryan Heacock
How they became friends
Helping each other out
Would sell Joey my paintings
Designing Joey’s tombstone
Pulled onto the interstate. More mourners
“I can’t even tell you what that meant to our family,”
Tough times and tough love
Went to Jacksonville
Ryan visits Jacksonville
Asks to come back home
Joey comes home. Gets a job, gets back with Missie
Not making ends meet, joins the Army
“He always thought a whole lot of Micah,” Ryan said.
Army suited him
Last visit and last picture at Christmas 2006
“When he got ready to go on the plane, I thought, You’re standing so tall, you like yourself, you’re proud of yourself,” she said.
Coming home in a different way
Open the casket
Family looks at the body
Mason ring, realize hand is missing
Jim Staggers, Army chaplain
Honorable transfer
Staggers confronts grief, calling to be a chaplain
“What would I want for my wife and kids if I were the one not to make it back?”
Preparing the family
Deducing from the weight of the casket
Game face
“Pick out a flower”
Pallbearers withdraw
Psalm 46
Missie weeps
“Daddy’s here.”
Staggers weeps
“You can’t deny your humanity.”
Signals honor guard to transfer casket to hearse
Procession begins, honor guard departs
Preview of 2 men’s future
“Steve Greene picked up the phone in late November 2006. It was the Pentagon.”
Greene and Kalitta Charters
Soldiers’ remains formerly shipped like parcels, introduce John and Stacey Holley
Holley Provision
“Auditioning” Kalitta
Kalitta prepares for duty
Kalitta crews
“Once you’re in the plane, you’re just flying”
Common/uncommon routes
Carrying Joe Montgomery
“The smaller the town the bigger the turnout”
“Always”
Negative experiences on first flights
Busy time in May
Unbuckle from seats
Family sees the casket
“That was the hardest part”
Why Linton doesn’t stand in the open door
“Some flights Jones and Linton remember more clearly than others”
Introduce Major Cory Larsen
Charles C. Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs
“Some people are broken here,” said Karen Giles, the director of the Carson Center. “But there are a lot of repeaters. We’re very protective of each other.”
Describe Giles
Describe the center
“It includes, in part”
Lists of deceased in various conflicts/tragedies
Operation Iraqi Freedom names, including Montgomery
Montgomery still in aluminum transfer case
Explosive Ordnance Disposal Room
Unpacking the case and logging body/effects
“No personal effects were found on Sergeant Montgomery’s body”
Counseling and meditation
Chaplain David Sparks
“The chaplains are back there with us every single day,” Larsen said. “Everyone appreciates that.”
Montgomery officially identified
Autopsy begins
Autopsy findings
Embalming suite
Mortuary practices
“viewability”
Mortician “puts Montgomery back together”
Anecdote from Sparks–“His mother washed his hair the first time, and I’m washing it for the last time.”
“It’s very intimate,” Sparks said. “Preparing remains is a very intimate thing. This is hands-on.”
Placed in casket/dressed
Karen Giles anecdote (cremated soldier)
Draping the flags
Introduce Major General Richard P. Formica
Requirements about generals
Boeing 747
Waiting for the plane
Religion
K-Loader/Red Carpet
Honor guards march to jet
Different planeloads
Moving cases
Sparks’ prayers
“But on this evening, his voice was strong and clear”
Prayer
“We are proud to welcome home these fallen heroes, to share the grief of their families, and to offer our honor and respect.
“Now, as always, we pray for a time when we are not cursed by terrorism and when young men and women do not die in war.
“This we pray in the name of the Prince of Peace.
“Amen.”
Carrying cases off the lift
“This is the most important thing I’ve ever done,” Sparks would say later of his job here. “I may never do anything more important.”
Driven to mortuary
Introduce Staff Sergeant Terry Slaght
KIA
Finding out Monty was dead
“I should have been there.”
Baghdad International Airport
Body transferred from helicopter
Identifying the body
Montgomery’s and Slaght’s travels
Micah Montgomery hears news
Micah calls his aunt
“Hi, A.V. It’s me, Micah.”
“I know…. Why are you calling here?”
Unlike his brother, Micah rarely called home from Iraq and never called Vicki. Her heart had begun to pound.
“It’s about Joey.”
“What about Joey? Is everything all right?”
“No,” he said.
Asks Vicki to go to Gail’s house
Wives begin to gather in Alaska
The wait for news
Vicki arrives at Gail’s
“No, no, no, no, no, no…” Gail said, beginning to cry.
Vicki began to cry, too.
“Which one?” Gail asked.
Vicki could only mouth the word: “Joey.”
Phones begin to ring
Ryan calls Missie before she knows
“Missie,” Ryan said, “I’m so sorry.”
Then Ryan heard the clatter of the phone on the floor.
Women help Missie. “A second round of waiting”
Official news arrives for Missie
Gathering of neighbors and family at Gail’s
“At four o’clock in the morning, there came the knock at their door.” (Gail)
Sgt. Montgomery, night of his death
Everyone in the truck
Thinking about phone conversation with family
Speaking with Missie when he heard an explosion
“Oh, my God, I’ve got to go,” Joey had said, and he’d hung up
Anxious wait
“I’m ok” email
The drive
Turn onto Red Wings
Road turns to dirt
Patrol Base Red
Confirm night’s mission
“If he didn’t have Copenhagen, I don’t think he would go on the mission,” Ross said later.
Farmer’s cache of weapons
Roles assigned
Moving out
Walking down the road
ADA ruins
Rudberg tells Montgomery to slow down
Path in the grass
“Two sounds broke open the night:
“Crack, then BOOM.
“It was impossibly loud, “the loudest noise I’ve ever heard in my life,” Goodwin said.”
Ross and Gilliland fall
“Ross couldn’t hear Gilliland yelling at him, “Ross, are you hit? Ross, Ross!”
“Gilliland thought it was Ross who’d been hurt.”
“Then you two started screaming his name,” Meeks recalled later.
“We couldn’t see Monty,” Ross said.
IEDs often planted in clusters
“Come in 11”
Can’t find Monty
M4 stripped down by the force of the blast
Grab hold of what felt like a uniform
“That’s when he saw Sergeant Montgomery. His eyes were open, but his body stopped at the waist.”
“I knew he was gone,” Gilliland said
“Ross staggered over and saw him, too. “There was nothing we could do. We just knew.”
“I remember seeing his blank stare,” Rudberg said. “It’s all so surreal, too, because you have to see it with that fucking night vision.”
“It doesn’t look good”
They never found all of him
Taking turns carrying the stretcher
Only Gilliland refused to be spelled
Just kept walking
“No one spoke.”
“Some of them were in shock.”
“All of them were covered in blood.”
Meet with a sniper team
Medic puts body in bag
Drive back to Falcon
Someone breaks news to Micah, he leaves for home
Bostick only spoke with Micah after his own brother dies
Drove through gates of Falcon
“That’s when I lost it,” Meeks said
“That’s when most of us broke down,” Ross said. “I’ve never been that emotional in my entire life.”
