European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 25, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 s tars an d s tripes sunday March 252007 handling with care mortuary staff honoured to tend to War dead by Sandra Jontz stars and stripes Al Asad air base Iraq in their civilian lives they Are a Driver for United parcel service seeking a promotion to supervisor a restaurant manager a welder a kid who works in a lumber Yard and College students work ing toward degrees in psychology and English in their military lives Asma Rine corps reservists they Are mortar men and riflemen infantry marines and communications specialists but none is Here in Iraq serving in their military occupational specialities the marines of retrieval and processing company the new name for mortuary affairs Are All volunteers who not Only wanted to serve in Iraq but to do so in the  realm of mortuary affairs the corps has no Active duty Force of mortuary affairs specialists so the service pulls from the Reserve ranks to perform the Job of processing the remains of dead service members from the com Bat zone if someone has Given the ultimate sacrifice it is our Honor to ensure that we get Back to the families their loved Onei every part every bit said chief War rant officer 2 Brad Harris the company officer charge we wont let it get like world War ii when families did not get re Mains there Are still people from Vietnam who never received anything Back we wont let that happen Here weve All done the funeral Side of this and weve seen How important it is for families to have closure he said Harris who works for ups in Lake Charles la also left his re serve Job As the infantry com Mander of company f 4th anti terrorism battalion to Lead the mortuary operations in Western Iraq he oversees procedures in three locations in Anbar province Al Asad Camp fal Lujah and Camp Tara drum the hardest part of the Job for Cpl Sergio Rosas 23 is going through the personal effects found on bodies brought into the converted vehicle maintenance Bays at Al Asad you know More about that per son in a few minutes than what youd learn from anyone close to us in an hour said Rosas a welder details drive their vocation they record every nuance every Fine distinction of the re Mains from grisly details which Many said Doest bother an inventory of person Al belongings the wedding bands the photo collections of wife and kids the letters Rosas has had to read some of those letters he recalls one from a Marine who wrote his Girlfriend that he planned to propose marriage upon his return another was from a wife announcing the couples new baby was a boy and that she  wait for the new father to see him for the first time those can be hard to Deal with he said but you have to Tell yourself this is just a Job they work to ensure the dead troops Are properly prepared for transport to Dover Bel where the military conducts autopsies and definitive identifications the biggest misconception of mortuary affairs Harris said is that people tend to think the marines perform autopsies and embalm the bodies everything we do is geared toward evidence gathering and preservation he said its a tedious Job that requires keen precision from the collection of remains and personal effects from the Field to the exact folding of the american flags that drape the Transfer cases for the final flight Back Home the marines in Western Iraq each have gone through the seven week preparatory training to do their jobs training which Lance Cpl Jeremy Holder 21 Lik ened to techniques used on the television show Sci we Learned How to do Finger printing match dental records and Learned medical terms for body parts and wounds said Sandra and stripes chief warrant officer 2 Brad Harris officer in charge of the personnel retrieval and processing company a new name for mortuary affairs stands in the room where his marines process the bodies of troops who die in Western Iraq Holder a data systems communicator in the reserves and Fronto House manager for Flat Rock restaurant in Asheville no but mortuary affairs Doest Deal solely with troops they pro Cess anyone who Dies on a us base or is brought onto the Camp include iraqi soldiers police men and civilians and with the opening of a level Iii trauma Hospital in Al Asad they mentally Are preparing them selves for the possibility of having to Deal with dead children said staff sgt Marcelino Marquez 33 Well try to leave that for the marines who dont have Chil Dren he said if they have Chil Dren that tends to hit closer to Home with them we have programs in place to help them Deal with the stress ways to help them Cope i encourage them to be More like a family in very proud of the Guys i got for the most part All they have is each other in this combat zone we try not to associate or get too close to some of the other marines Holder said it makes it harder to Deal with if you Are friends with the victim on your processing table not to mention they tend to stay away from us anyway he added with a rueful laugh they know youre mortuary affairs and they Well Back away email Sandra Jontz at after Deal for italian journalist some fear Rise in kidnappings by Jason Straziuso the associated press Kabul Afghanistan anxiety and anger Are rippling through Kabul International Community after the Exchange of five Taliban prisoners for a kid napped italian reporter with Aid workers diplomats and journalists saying they fear More Kidnap pings afghans meanwhile Are dismayed that their government has apparently done nothing to free the italians captured afghan translator after paying such a High Price to liberate a foreigner la Republica reporter Daniele Mastrogiacom was freed monday by his Taliban kid nappers two weeks after being captured in the dangerous South Era province of Helmand his afghan Driver was beheaded and his translator also a journalist re Mains in Captivity Italy pressed Afghanistan to meet the kidnappers demands leading to the release of the five prisoners reportedly including two High level Taliban a former spokesman and the brother of the militias top ground com Mander Mullah Dadulla the us Britain and the Netherlands As Well As politicians in Italy sharply criticized the Deal Rafiq Ghulam Haydar 65yearold father of the captured afghan translator wipes his eyes As he Speaks Friday at his residence in Kabul Afghanistan afghans Are dismayed that their government has done nothing to free the translator after releasing five Taliban prisoners for an italian journalist we italians Are by now consid ered unreliable by our own Al lies former Premier Silvio Berlusconi said but foreign minis Ter Massimo Dalema defended the Exchange saying he did not re Gret that a life had been saved but Many Here View the Swap As having put More lives in Dan Ger an Aid worker or journalist suddenly has so much value said Wahilla Zafar an american from Flanagan Illinois working in Kabul since december 2005 she asked that her employer not be named so it didst appear she was speaking on its behalf the Taliban now if they were going to Kidnap us see our lives As Worth five or 10 Taliban Zafar said she had no plans to go to Helmand the Lawless Southern province where Mastro Giacomo was taken captive and the worlds leading opium product ing Region but mat now she feared being kidnapped in Kabul diplomats and Aid workers also were irked by the prisoner Swap i think its really wrong that we negotiate with terrorists Manisha Naderi an of gha american and the director of the Aid group women for afghan women said that encourages further kidnappings and fur ther violence against the foreign Community terrorism analysts however said the Swap was unlikely to in crease the threat of kidnappings there going to keep taking hostages whether there was this Exchange or not said Mustafa Alani director of Security and terrorism studies at the Dubai based Gulf research Center this is part of their strategy Bruce Hoffman a terrorism expert at Georgetown University in the Washington said he was not surprised by the efforts made to secure the italians release but was doubtful they would have a major Impact does negotiating encourage More kidnappings it seems that not negotiating with them also encourages More terrorists and insurgents Are going to do what they think they can get away with he said there have been multiple kidnappings in Afghanistan in recent years often foreigners working on Road and engineering projects