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Honoring a Nation’s Promise

  • Published
  • By Senior Master Sgt. George Thompson
  • 386th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  While sequestration and budget cuts continue to garner the media's attention and leaves service members and civilians scratching their heads as to what's being cut next, the joint team of Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Central Command's Deployment and Distribution Operations Center continue their solemn responsibility of honoring our nation's promise to return all service members killed in action home with dignity.

"The theater mortuary affairs office will give us a heads-up about a conflict in a certain area of Afghanistan, but it's the unit's responsibility to get the human remains to one of the mortuary affairs collection points," said United States Air Force, Lt. Col. Monica Blakley, Deputy Chief, Current Operations Division. "Once they get there and everything gets processed they submit a request through Intra-Theater Airlift Request System to get that individual first to Ramstein and then back home to Dover Air Force Base."

The CENTCOM DDOC is the central processing facility for all ITARS submissions but once a dignified transfer request is received, it unquestionably becomes priority one.

"We have a 72-hour window from the time they are brought to one of the mortuary affairs collection points to get them back to Dover," she said.

The two recent helicopter crashes in Afghanistan in which six service members were killed is a stark reality to the somber mission CENTCOM DDOC personnel are tasked to accomplish.

"Unfortunately we've had quite a few we had to move lately," she said. "They are already showing their names, ages and hometown on AFN and it really drives it home that it's not just human remains were moving, that's someone's family member, someone's husband, wife, sister, brother."

Blakley explained how she and the team keep things in perspective despite the emotional impact of their mission.

"Trying to relate if that were your family member, how important it would be; number one that they are handled in a dignified manner and two that you get them home as quickly as possible," she said.

In calendar year 2012 the CENTCOM DDOC processed 14,681 intra-theater airlift request for 46,695 passengers, but none as important as the 476 dignified transfer requests processed during that period.

"When we get the call that one's coming it becomes everyone's number one priority," she said. "Everyone here takes that to heart to get them moving back home as quickly as possible."

Although sequestration automatically reduced Air Force flying hours by as much as 18% to include intra-theater airlift, the CENTCOM DDOC's everlasting mission of returning service members home with dignity continues undiminished.