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CAMP PEPELISHTE, Macedonia – There is one small unit in the U.S. Marine Corps that conducts search and recovery missions and processing of human remains all over the world. This unit is known as Personnel Retrieval and Processing Company, 4th Marine Logistics Group.
The PRP specialist military occupational skill is a Reserve-only field, and they constantly deploy overseas to combat zones.
The PRP Company, located in Washington, D.C., also has a detachment in Smyrna, Ga., and six Marines were in Macedonia for Medical Training Exercise in Central and Eastern Europe 2011 to share their knowledge with service members from Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Norway.
“Every day on the battlefield, we lose soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. It is our duty to get those service members home in a timely fashion,” said Staff Sgt. Tresor Mbunker, the staff noncommissioned officer in charge of the PRP detachment out of Smyrna, Ga.
Currently, the Marines have a PRP team based in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, set up to execute combat search and recoveries throughout the region, and the team has processed 20 bodies within 24 hours.
When the Marines receive remains, they begin documenting the body or body portions and personal effects.
A full torso is considered human remains. Limbs, such as arms, legs, hands, or pieces of the body, are considered portions. Personal effects are any equipment or items the body has on it, such as items in his or her pocket or personal protective equipment like a Kevlar helmet or a flak jacket.
“We always wear gloves and seal everything once we’re done with it,” said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Christopher Nepper, the officer in charge of Det. PRP. “We treat all remains with dignity, reverence and respect.”
As part of that respect, the PRP team transports the bodies back to the states within 72 hours, Mbunker said.
The team is organized into three roles -- the team leader, the clean hands and the dirty hands.
The team leader controls the pace of the work and tells the clean and dirty hands if they should do anything differently.
The “clean hands,” also known as the scribe, completes processing paperwork for the team and ensures all documents, evacuation tags and seals are prepared properly, while the “dirty hands” process the physical remains and personal effects.
When the PRP team receives remains with no identification, a statement of recognition form must be filled out by someone in the descendant’s chain of command.
This job can be full of very hard decisions to make.
“If you’ve got nine bodies and one leg, you’ve got to decide if you want to dispose of that leg or not,” Nepper said. “That leg might have been from a 10th guy. If you dispose of it, then you could possibly have a missing person and an unsolved case, which is something to think about.”
“If we get a bone, we’re going to treat it with dignity, reverence and respect,” said Mbunker. “We might find out later on that it was from a cow, but we still have to do it that way.”
The final step in the search and recovery process is to ensure the remains are transported back to the U.S.
“When we get on the plane, we transport [the remains] feet first, then rotate them to the head first position once on board,” said Mbunker
For these Marines, their day begins when someone else has had a very bad day, and they take their job very seriously.
| Date Taken: | 06.15.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 06.15.2011 10:09 |
| Story ID: | 72112 |
| Location: | CAMP PEPELISHTE, MK |
| Web Views: | 1,123 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Personnel Retrieval, Processing Company processing human remains all over world, by PFC Joseph Altemus, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
