wfn.org | Chaplain recalls experience in Sept. 11 mortuary

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Aug. 12, 2002 News media contact: Linda Green7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.
10-21-71BP{358}

NOTE: A photograph is available with this story. Two additional reports on
chaplains are also being posted: UMNS story #357 and #359.

A UMNS Feature
By Linda Green*

Chaplains are prepared for all sorts of situations, but those involved in
the rescue efforts following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found themselves
in circumstances beyond anything for which they had trained.

"It's really something because we're trained to do a lot of things in the
military, but this was nothing that matched any of our training," says the
Rev. Terry Bradfield, lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, describing what
Sept. 11 was like for him and three other chaplains on the mortuary detail. 

Bradfield, a United Methodist chaplain based at the Pentagon's Chief of
Chaplains office in Washington, helped recover the remains of those on the
airplane that struck the Pentagon and of the employees who perished.

"We'd bring them out and put them in the mortuary while the remains were
being processed for identification," he says.

The mortuary team, consisting of Bradfield and Catholic, Presbyterian and
Church of God chaplains, formed "a chain of dignity."  

The Pentagon was a different type of battlefield, he says. "It was a mass
casualty operation, but it was an attack on an office building and not a
battlefield, not in the traditional sense of the word. We had to kind of
make things up as we went along."  

Bradfield and the team applied the doctrines prescribed for battlefield
operations, "and we established what we came to term a 'chain of dignity' in
the recovery operation."

Once a body or body part was found, a member of the mortuary team would pray
over the remains or read from Psalms. Medical personnel pronounced death,
and Bradfield would pray over the remains at that time. Afterward, the
remains would be sent to a temporary mortuary, where they would be held
until being sent on to the military's mortuary in Dover, Del. 

"The primary thing was to maintain a chain of dignity with those remains,"
he says. "We wanted to make sure that the families could sense that there
was respect in the handling of the remains of their loved ones, and that
those who have faith in eternal God would know that God was present in all
of the operations, from the locating to the extraction of their family
members."
 
The operation is one that Bradfield will always remember. Since the end of
the recovery efforts, he has not shared his personal story or feelings with
the media. He has turned down several preaching invitations and interviews
in the past year, but he has agreed to let United Methodist Communications,
through its Web-based television show and United Methodist News Service,
profile him as part of the agency's Sept. 11 anniversary coverage. 

He also has agreed to lead the United Methodist-related Wesley Seminary
community in worship on Sept. 10 as it commemorates the tragedy. Bradfield
accepted the invitation because he realized that "my responsibility in
aiding folks' recovery from the attack probably isn't finished."

Bradfield is connected with the tragedy in a way he cannot forget. "I'm not
sure that I ever want to shake it or will be able to shake it, it's just a
part of me now," he says. "It's only been a year, almost. I'm not sure that
that's a whole lot of time to pass. I knew several people who were victims
of the attack. You can't shake just off the memory of those with whom you've
worked and lived."

Describing himself as a once-happy-go-lucky and jovial person, he says Sept.
11 and being part of the mortuary team were sobering. He has developed a new
appreciation for life in America. "I'm sad that we're not able to enjoy it
with as much abandon as we were able to before that day," he says. However,
despite the extra security measures Americans are enduring now, "we still
live in a society that affords us the liberties and the freedoms that have
come to mean so much to each of us," he says. 

Following the attacks, many people asked where God was, but they soon
realized that God had nothing to do with what happened, Bradfield says.
"Because of the nature of this incident, it was an attack, it wasn't an
accident; it wasn't an act of God, but was an intentional act by somebody."

People understood God was present after the incidents, and that
understanding made a difference in many lives, he says.

The chaplains' offices were 40 feet to the right of where the plane struck
the Pentagon. Bradfield describes the renovation work as "healed skin,
really, over a gash in the organism that is the Pentagon."  

Seeing the day-to-day construction has been a healing balm for him and the
other chaplains. "I guess you should never give human attributes to an
inanimate object, but the Pentagon is more than a building; it is all the
folk who work in it," he says. The symbolism of rebuilding the Pentagon is
significant, he says, and watching the renovation is "like watching a
resurrection." 

Acknowledging the celebrations, tributes, commemorations and special
services that will be held across the country, he says he would prefer to
mark the day quietly and personally. He says that it is not the events of
the day that he'll remember so much as the people who died as a result of
the attacks.
 
"I would just like to mark it quietly, (and) remember it as a day that was
unique in not just the life of the country but in my own life," he says. "
... The nature of resurrection is more real to me now than it ever has been
before. I've seen not only a building being rebuilt, but I've seen a
community come back to life."

# # #

*Green is news director in United Methodist News Service's Nashville, Tenn.,
office.

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United Methodist News Service
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