JOINT BASE CHARLESTON, S.C. – Hundreds of active-duty service members die every year. Some of the leading causes are suicide, motor vehicle accidents and cardiovascular incidents. Each and every one of their deaths is a tragedy not only for the branch to which they served, but also for their families. Their bodies must be prepared and their loved ones must be consoled. This is the responsibility and pleasure of the men and women of the Services career field.
U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Antigone Bagtas, 628th Force Support Squadron at Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, is one such member of Services. She is currently the First Term Enlisted Course Noncommissioned Officer in Charge at the Professional Development Center, teaching new bright-eyed Airmen the ropes as they arrive to their first duty station. She’s worked many more jobs than just that, helping to operate dining facilities, fitness centers and eventually the mortuary. It was the mortuary that she ultimately found the most rewarding.
“Even though I can’t make that time any easier for them,” said Bagtas. “I can make it less hard and being able to make the hardest time in their life easier is the most fulfilling thing for me. So, I’m just a giver. If I can handle your flight, if I can handle your hotel, or I can handle talking to the funeral home for you so you don’t have to, that’s one less thing for you to worry about.”
The moments that stick with her the most are the ones where she was supporting others. As a mother, holding a grieving woman who’d just lost a child or getting up at all hours of the night to answer calls from confused family members were the most memorable. The job took a piece of her that she had to be willing to give away. To take the high road, be a punching bag and put the needs of the inconsolable above her own.
Bagtas remarked that she would never cry in front of the families. Cry in the car afterwards, cry in the shower at home, but never when standing in the same room as the grieving. It was not her burden to bear. Bagtas’ job was to assist in the bearing, but not to take on the weight herself.
“It’s called compassion fatigue,” she said. “You have to make sure you’re not just becoming a robot. So, it takes a lot of emotional intelligence on our part to compartmentalize our emotions so you’re able to handle people crying in front of you or screaming or telling you, ‘I don’t want your money, I just want my kid,’ and just understanding that it’s not your weight.”
Bagtas recalled a particularly demanding family to work with when there was a 14-hour time difference between them. Their phone calls would come at all hours, one even at nearly midnight, and they’d be angry. They would yell, cry and ask the same questions over and over again, all at the dead of the night.
Bagtas did not fight however. She never yelled back, she never told them she didn’t deserve this abuse, she never complained once. Because she knew that they weren’t really screaming at her. They were angry that the terrible tragedy had happened to them. That someone they loved was taken, but Bagtas could be the wall they slammed their fists into. She knew that this could be anyone, this could be her and she knew how she’d want to be treated.
She not only represented the professionalism of the Air Force in those moments, but showed humanity to the emotionally beaten and bruised in the kindest way possible.
Bagtas made it clear that dealing with the families is only half of the job. The bodies left behind by the dead must also be cared for. She would inspect the bodies pre-embalming and post-embalming, looking for holes or markings that must be cleaned or covered. Then comes the make-up, the inspection of the make-up, dressing the body, making sure what they’re dressed in is proper. After that comes the casket, ensuring that they are laid properly and if being shipped to or from, making sure that nothing was disrupted on the journey. It’s an extremely in-depth procedure that takes a week to perform. An inspection is not purely visual as well. Every part of the body, from head to toe, must be felt to make certain that it’s been treated properly.
Many people have difficulty seeing a dead body on TV, but Bagtas had to deal with real bodies with intense intimacy because it was important that they were well taken care of and that when the families finally laid eyes on the deceased, they looked their best.
“It’s hard when you’ve seen that body and made all these corrections and then the mom asks you, “what does my baby look like?” remarked Bagtas. “You have to watch your words because you don’t want to say, well this was broken and this is how they looked. No one needs that image.”
No matter how adept someone is at the job, it’s still very important to find ways to decompress. Every battery drains and finding your own unique way of recharging is essential so you’re ready when more energy must be expended. Bagtas is a TV person, finding shows with endless seasons and rewatching them over and over again, as well as slowly turning her home into a jungle with her sheer number of plants that she trains her green thumb on. Family is what’s most important though and her main charging cable extends from them.
“Now I have children,” explained Bagtas. “Just going home and watching them interact with each other is great. I’m like the old grandma that likes to sit and watch her kids play. That’s me. So, if I can go home and just watch everybody have a smile, my day will be great.”
When Bagtas must be apart from her family, she is always giving to others. Services is a career field that can easily be overlooked. They are the unseen providers and can easily be perceived as just the people who hand you your lunch or sign you into the gym, but they are so much more than that.
Bagtas illustrated that they are the ones who fuel the men and women who perpetuate the Air Force mission. They make sure the fitness center stays operational, allowing service members to stay fit and ready, but also giving them a place to clear their minds and do their own recharging after a hard day on the flightline, in medical or up in the sky. They ensure your training is up to date, your physical training test is administered correctly and, most importantly, that our fallen heroes are taken care of. They honor us after we’re gone and ensure our families are cared for.
“One thing that I do for every Airman is I pray over them,” she said. “After my final inspection, I’ll usually put my hand over their heart and I talk to God. I ask God for coverage over their family, over them and then also over me to be able to close this out in my soul. That’s what gets me through.”