The Things That Carried Him – outline – JRLC 5800: Enterprise Reporting for Sports

Part One: Indiana, The End

Pre-burial
- Don Collins standing outside, mapping a rectangle
- Find out that the rectangle is for a burial
- Scene-setting of Collins carefully beginning digging process
- Starts digging and it’s a little different than his normal process
- Soldiers arrive and we learn this story has a military component
Burying the body
- Travel to cemetery
- Casket enters cemetery for military funeral
- Casket description, adds detail about the person’s military past
- Prayer and songs
- Military funeral rituals
  - Fired three volleys
  - Background on buglers
  - Leatherbee plays trumpet
  - Emotion of this ritual
- Soldiers carrying casket and seeing the person’s family
- Flag folding
  - First step, emotion
  - Triangular folds, pride of those who do it
  - Completion of fold
  - General officer in attendance
    - Introduction of the young wife
    - Pinckney approaches wife, Missie
    - Pinckney reflects on difficulty of job
  - Ties in Pinckney’s emotion with flag folding and Missie’s pain
  - Purpose of flag
- Service ends
  - Cover with dirt
  - Person buried was Sgt. Joe Montgomery, who was 30 years old
- Gail Bond reflects on Joe’s baptism
  - Smokes
  - Gail’s brother has died; we learn that her first husband was Joey’s father and he died in a car wreck; her parents died consecutive days and more
- Introduction of those who are mourning Joey’s death
  - Joey was first person from Scott County to die in Iraq; many people didn’t know Joey
  - Learn details about Joey – liked to write, brave, became a soldier to make older brother proud and wanted to make better life of his wife and kids
- Seymour, Indiana
  - Procession
    - Was very well attended
    - Worried about protesters, but the Patriot Guard was formed in response
    - Dunaway met Micah Montgomery in jump school and came down from Alaska to be Joey’s escort
    - Mayor drove while crying
    - Seeing people crying for you
    - Joey used to work at steel forge
    - Ryan’s best-friend relationship with Joey
      - How they became friends
      - Ryan helped set Joey up with Missie
      - Ryan sold paintings to Joey
      - Now Ryan is designing Joey’s tombstone
    - Line of mourners
      - Bill Graham saying what that meant
    - Post high school Joey, homeless
      - Went to Florida to live with sister
      - Ryan came to visit
      - Joey asked mom to bring him home, said he had to obey the rules
      - Joey came home and followed rules, went to work, became a father
    - Joey joined the Army
      - A fresh start, climbed the ranks
      - Gail last saw Joey Christmas of 2006
      - Her saying bye to him at airport
      - Now he’s coming home again in the procession
    - Back to funeral scene
      - Joey looked good enough for family viewing
      - Details of Gail and Missie seeing him dead
      - Joey was missing ring; Micah put his own ring on Joey’s glove
    - Jim Staggers
      - Describes military handoff
      - How Staggers became chaplain
      - Staggers approach to his work
      - He tried to prepare Joey’s family
      - Guardsmen assessing casket weight to find out about the person
        
        Joey’s was lighter than expected
      - Dealing with emotion of seeing tearful children
      - Staggers thinks about his own children
      - Psalm and approach casket
        
        Missie
        
        Gail
        
        Staggers
        
        Can’t deny humanity
        
        Lift casket and carry to hearse
        
        State troopers head back
        
        Two people in van joined members of Indiana National Guard going to Iraq

Part Two: Dover Air Force Base

How bodies are taken back to U.S.
- Greene talked about chartering plane
- Before remains of soldiers had been sent on commercial planes
- Changed ways of how military dead are delivered
- Special planes devoted full-time to this
- Crew of these planes
  - Emotions of crew
  - Familiar routes, some places they’ve never landed
  - Before Joey, neither had flown to Seymour, Indiana
  - “Smaller the town, the bigger the turnout”
  - Memories of trips
  - They became more practiced
- Casket pushed onto ball mat
- Family is “hit by the truth” when casket comes through door
  - Hardest part
  - Now Jones doesn’t stay in open door
  - Memories of when it takes a long time – in Seymour, so many people below
- Mortuary
  - Mortuary description
    - People who work there
    - Impact on people who work there
    - Karen Giles accepts reality of job
    - Dignity, honor and respect – motto
    - Joey is 3,431^st person killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom
  - Arrival at mortuary, five days there
  - Process at the mortuary
    - No unexploded bombs, ammunition, booby traps found
    - Unpacked from case
    - No personal effects
    - Counseling and meditation rarely used
    - Chaplain
    - Arrived with “believed to be” status
    - Autopsy
      - Consistent with proximity to explosive device
      - Wounds documented, prepared for burial
      - Body fluids replaced by preservatives
    - Viewability
      - Putting Joey back together
      - Description of putting others back together
    - Body in casket
      - Attention that goes into this
    - Flag happens last
  - Protocol of moving bodies and the emotion/importance of the job
    - Formica’s background in military death procedure
    - Specific instance of Joey
    - Honor guards waiting
      - Religion
    - Open door and red carpet
    - Honor guards march out
    - Process is still brutal for crew
    - Case in front of cargo door protocol
    - Sparks memory of saying prayer
    - Carrying cases into trunk
    - Never gets easier, always person

Part Three: Forward Operating Base

Journey to the States
- KIA in south Baghdad
  - Slaght was friends with Montgomery
  - Where Slaght is now
- Helicopter touches down
- Joey is carried into truck
- Placed in bag
- Slaght’s distraught
Micah learns Joey is dead
- Calls mayor and then calls Aunt Vicki
- Tells Vicki to go to his mom’s house
The news breaks
- Gail finds out from Vicki
- Everyone begins to find out
- Missie finds out from Ryan
- Men come to Missie’s house
How Joey died
- Listening to music heading to party
- Description of people in the car
- Joey had just had weekly phone call with family
  - Explosion interrupts phone call
  - Joey emails that he’s OK
- Description of roads and IEDs in Iraq
- Driving down Red Wings
  - Road turned to dirt
- Humvees pull inside Patrol Base Red
- Briefed the platoon
- Plan of farm raid
- Joey volunteers to walk point
- Description of Joey, how other perceived him
- Walking with night-vision goggles
  - Thought they were being watched
  - Told Joey to take his time
  - Loud noise
- Gilliland asks if Ross has been hit
- Couldn’t see Joey
- Couldn’t see through smoke
- Still couldn’t find Joey
  - Rudberg fell into crater and landed on Joey’s rifle
  - Sees uniform
- Joey’s body stopped at the waist
  - The others knew there was nothing that could be done
  - Radios KIA
- After Joey’s death
  - Gathered what they could of Joey and his belongings
  - Ross was OK
  - Continued to walk in silence, covered in blood
  - Drove Joey on the hood of the truck
  - Medic took Joey’s possessions out of his pockets
  - Bostick thinks about Micah
    - The two don’t talk until two months after Joey’s death
  - Rest of the troop salutes the men in the trucks
    - They are overcome by emotion
  - Joey is carried to morgue
    - Prayed
  - The others couldn’t sleep that night and burned fires
- Joey’s body is carried away in one of the Black Hawks and the others salute him as the plane leaves

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