Soldier Dead

Soldier Dead asks what becomes of American service members who die in uniform, and why the armed forces will risk lives to bring home fallen comrades, sometimes decades after a conflict has ended. Michael Sledge treats the recovery of remains as a question with physical, social, religious, economic, and political dimensions, and he argues that the answers reveal what the war dead mean to families, to those who served beside them, and to the nation.

Sledge follows each stage of the process: recovery in the field, identification, transport home, burial, and remembrance. He shows how these practices have changed with advances in technology and with shifting public, governmental, and military attitudes. The book also looks at the emotional toll on the people who handle the dead, at ongoing efforts to recover remains from Korea and other places, and at how unresolved questions about the treatment of enemy dead still shape American relations abroad.

The book draws on interviews, personal letters and diaries, military records, and newspaper and magazine accounts, along with photographs that have not been published before and the author's own reflections. Family members, the dead themselves through their writings, and the military personnel who prepared them for final disposition all speak in the text. Their accounts range from harrowing to hopeful, and they convey danger, duty, courage, commitment, and care.