JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. –
Five Soldiers with the 3rd Platoon, 111th Quartermaster Company (Mortuary Affairs), 11th Transportation Battalion, 7th Transportation Battalion (Expeditionary), out of Fort Lee, Virginia, and a sixth Soldier with the Headquarters Platoon, deployed to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Washington, D.C., serving as fully functioning autopsy technicians.
“[Six of our Soldiers] are operating out of two sites in Washington, D.C.,” said Capt. Joseph G. Miller, 111th Quartermaster Company (Mortuary Affairs) commander. “One is the morgue and one is a temporary storage site. [The Soldiers] are collecting specimens from external examinations, which includes drawing fluids from the eyes, mouths and large vessels. They are collecting and packaging nasopharyngeal swab samples for COVID testing, weighing internal organs, performing forensic photography, and conducting the movement, inventory and distribution of personal protective equipment.”
The 111th QMCO (MA) is performing the same duties their sister company, the 54th QMCO (MA), performed in New York City, while not in terms of scale, due to the sheer number of COVID-19 fatalities in NYC in comparison to the National Capital Region, certainly in terms of the utmost dignity, honor and respect with which decedent remains are treated postmortem.
“[We] were tasked by United States Army Forces Command through a request from [the] Federal Emergency Management Agency,” said Miller. “The request had to get approved by the Secretary of Defense to use Title 10 Soldiers (active component) in a mission on U.S. soil.”
The OCME-DC manages all remains in the NCR, which 111th Soldiers and organic staff test for COVID-19. The remains are kept in the OCME if the test result is negative. The test positive remains go to the disaster lead morgue site, which 111th Soldiers also man alongside OCME-DC staff.
“They assist in the movement and transportation of those remains, arrangements of public and private disposition of the remains to funeral homes and/or families and perform a 100 percent inventory of remains in temporary storage three times a day,” said Miller. “They perform daily equipment inventory and serviceability checks, disinfect the mortuary unit areas and run the administrative section of the disaster morgue.”
Miller also said the civilian autopsy technicians and pathologists at OCME-DC were so impressed with the 111th Soldiers’ inherent skill set and initiative that they are allowing the 111th Soldiers to perform complete evisceration and sample collection of decedents without supervision. The pathologist then performs their survey, making a medicolegal determination of the cause and manner of death. This frees up the civilian autopsy technicians from a supervisory role, allowing more autopsies completed during a shift.
“I am very proud of the work my team is doing in Washington, D.C., for the nation,” Miller said. “There is a strong history of quiet professionals in the mortuary affairs field...they go into a situation without anyone noticing, are the absolute best in their profession, then only leave that situation when the mission is complete. [They’ll] leave the mission quietly, and in a better state than it was when they got there with long-lasting positive changes that they have made.”
The five Soldiers with 3rd Platoon are 1st Lt. Carlos Lopez, Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Stoner, Sgt. Jorge Galvan, Pfc. Bradey [sic] Campbell, and Pfc. Sebastian Walteros. The HQ Platoon Soldier is Spc. Brenna Palomo.