oh, spaceforce

[bedlamsbard]

God, it says so much about my novel that I have to Google "u.s. navy mortuary affairs" -- fifty-three percent casualty rate, people! Fifty-three! On the North Carolina alone! That's over five thousand souls who never made it back to Earth. (All starcarriers do have cold storage for bodies, but a number of those lost die in space, which makes it nearly impossible to recover the bodies. As well, Mortuary Affairs Storage wasn't meant to have to carry that many dead, and so Engineering has rigged up a system to double some of the now-empty sections of the ship as cold storage to allow everyone who can come home to come home. Just before McAuliffe finally figured out the Zelenka converter, the senior staff were discussing the necessity of burial in space or at one of the American forts -- there reaches a point where it's impractical to carry around that many dead. Several thousand families are extremely grateful the North Carolina got home when it did, if only so that they could bury their children and spouses and parents.)

Comments

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

Odd question, but -- would it be practical/acceptable to cremate the bodies and then keep the ashes? There'd be less room needed.

Also, what about Jewish soldiers whose tradition mandates they be buried as soon as possible?

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I would assume that those soldiers or civilians that have requested cremation would be cremated.

Burial on the planet they're killed on or nearest to, I suppose? I'm sure that the American forts also have cemeteries, but the Carolina's not near those very often.

The U.S. military has a tradition of retrieving bodies for burial back in the United States, unlike, say, Britain, which is why I was thinking the Carolina would be taking people home. Burial at space, too (which is what some of the other ships do, cremation and then releasing the ashes into space), but the Carolina has the most hope of actually getting home.

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

I mean cremating people just as a matter of recourse. Bear in mind you're setting this in the future, and Earth may be running out of -- well, earth in which to bury people, so cremation might be the default option for a lot of folks. But storing little boxes of ashes is easier than storing big meaty bodies.

I'm trying to think if cold storage counts as preserving the body in any way, which in varying degrees of orthodoxy you're not supposed to do. *considers*

It seems so impractical, though, you know? To have big containers with bodies in them. I could see the space-military having a waiver that you can sign that says 'it's okay to burn your remains if you die'. (bonus points for cremation: you can potentially use the energy released to power ... thingies ... on your ship, right? /is awful.)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not that far in the future -- at this point, only about ten years (ignore the spaceship; I swear to god it makes sense in context).

I don't know, I was just thinking that since the U.S. military today ships bodies home from war (Iraq and otherwise), it would still want to do that in space. I mean, before the wormhole collapsed, I think they were doing so more frequently -- weekly, I mean, on empty supply ships returning to Earth. Or something. Oh my God, I did not think this far ahead. (Or behind, whatever.)

I wouldn't even be thinking about it if it hadn't been for the fact I just wrote a scene with a, um, dead body. (One of the officers killed himself.)

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

We're already running out of earthplaces to put dead people, though. :/ Ok, fair enough, I remember that in star trek, Khan&Crew were tossed out into space in 1994.

I can see the sentiment behind it -- the notion of wanting to be buried at 'home' -- it's just that, it seems sort of like trying to keep bodies for land-burial when you're on an ocean vessel, almost. On some level. (it could just be 2am for me and my brain could be fried).

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

And in Space: Above and Beyond (filmed in 1993 or 1994...maybe '95, I don't remember, takes place in 2063), they also perform space burials. It's just that...debris in space. Isn't that bad?

No, you're making sense. Huh. I should float this question around and see what responses I get.

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

Aw, they're only hunks of frozen meat, what damage can they do? You'd think they'd break if they hit something, or burn up if they decided to hit the atmosphere of a planet.

My POV could also be affected by the whole mostly-atheist thing; a lot of the Catholics I've met are repulsed by the idea of cremation and want to be buried 'whole'. It depends on the culture and philosophy.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Bodies in metal coffins...I have no idea. I could put this toward my chem teacher, I suppose. (Gee, that'd be a fun conversation. "Hey, Mr. H, if you expel coffins from a spaceship, would that be bad?")

See, I'm coming from the mostly-pagan with a heavy dose of way too much military reading viewpoint, so I have no idea how on I am either. It's just...well, they do ship home the bodies now, and I know that Mortuary Affairs is very respectful of them. I should look into what they did during WWII, I suppose.

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

Oh wait, coffins, forgot about those. What, you can't just like, vacuum-pack them? My fauxbro suggests pulling a Spock and torpedoing them into the nearest land-mass. "Self-burying coffins" he calls it.

Our military is weird. "Your son is dead! Here's a hunk of rotting meat in his likeness, that you may bury it on your own time and our own dime. (unless he's gay, killed himself, or is anything else we don't like.)"

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

But the American military doesn't do that! They bring the bodies home -- God, I'm going to have to put this toward my dad, which is going to make conversation at dinner weird tonight.

(Vaguely related sidenote: Have you read the article The Things That Carried Him (http://www.esquire.com/features/things-that-carried-him)? That's where I'm getting some of my information.)

What, like...my secondary main character? (Okay, he doesn't kill himself, but he is gay and he does die in action.)

Would you rather not get the body back? At least that's something, rather than nothing. Without the body you don't know if they're really dead, or just MIA.

[mentalhygiene.livejournal.com]

I'm saying, in a crisis situation -- which, um, a war with lots and lots of bodies I think qualifies as a burial crisis -- if I was, say, in charge of these matters, I'd try to take the practical route. But then, I'm a bit of a dick.

Oh, man, okay, I got up to the lid being lithographed with scenes from the Iraq war, and I think I might puke. I know, I know, don't taunt other people's burial customs but ... that's ... really genuinely disturbing to me on some level.

Depends -- is he openly gay? And is this a US Military who has removed their collective head from their collective ass about having openly gay servicepeople? If they find out retroactively that he was gay, they might get uppity and not want to bury him with honors, etc. And I could be wrong, and my dad is not answering his phone so I can't query him at the moment, but I'm pretty sure they don't do military honors for suicides. I think I have another person I can ask; I'll check. Sources (read: my dad) say he can't think of why they wouldn't get full military honors, as long as they had been honorably discharged.

I just don't quite see the purpose of an open-casket, full-meat viewing/burial/funeral type thing. I would be happy with the ashes of my loved one. I mean, if they had the body, but the person -- these are all of the age of majority, they can decide what they want to be done with their bodies -- had decided 'no, I want to be torpedoed into an asteroid' or 'no, I want to be cremated and shipped home in a shoebox', I mean, I guess you could always take a photo and send it to the relatives back home. Sort of like those casket photos they used to do in the late 19th century. Or a deathmask. I mean, the only person in my life who's died, I saw them die, so I can't speak from experience of any kind of uncertainty.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Okay, little more research: during WWII they didn't bring a lot of the bodies home just because of the sheer number of dead -- which is why you get the fields of white crosses in France and so forth -- but for Iraq, they have brought everyone back.

It's...a very depressing article, but I think also an important one. It tells the story backward.

This is about fifteen years in the future; the president did get rid of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. So not exactly the same situation. (Um, it's also not exactly the same situation in that he isn't actually a member of the military at the time, but the circumstances are complicated and related to the world of the novel itself, so I don't really want to get into it. But more or less military honors.)

Well, it's...I think it depends on the person and the family. After talking with my dad (Navy vet), it seems like they'd do everything they could to bring them home just because That's What America Does. I think it's a familial/cultural thing more than anything else.