Whither Go The Dead?

Fair Use

One thing many people tend to forget is what happens to the dead and wounded in the aftermath of battle. Death in battle is very messy and certainly not glorious. At least for the dead, their suffering is at an end, for the wounded the nightmare was only beginning.

Of course, I'm speaking of olden times. While being wounded is still horrible, at least these days there is the possibility of fairly rapid transport to a field hospital. Not to mention the often immediate care from a medic/corpsman to stabilize a wounded trooper while awaiting evacuation.

Once the battle was done, what happened? Often one army would retreat and the other army would pursue, leaving the battlefield, and the many dead and wounded, behind them, left to the often not-so-tender mercies of the local civilians. These folks were typically not very pleased to have two contending armies in their neighborhood, trampling crops, stealing chickens, and being "rude" to the local ladies.

The dead and wounded would be looted, stripped of nearly everything on them. Those wounded who protested would often be quickly dispatched without mercy. Not only the local civilians but the stragglers (men too cowardly to face battle themselves) from one army or the other (sometimes both if the armies remained in place) would stalk the field, looting the dead and the soon to be dead without any compunction whatsoever.

War has always been brutal, but it was even more so back in the day. This video gives a good background on what became of the dead after a battle.

Gruesome, I know. But between the horror of the battlefield and the tidy graveyard lies the business no one wants to know about. Like the video says, the Graves Registration (now known as Mortuary Affairs) troops of the United States don't receive enough recognition for what they did, and still do.

A soldier knows that his duties might require the sacrifice of his/her life. One comfort in the United States military is that we try very hard not to leave our dead and wounded behind. It happens, but huge efforts are made to evacuate the wounded and recover the dead.

It's the least we can do for our fallen comrades.