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The body bag: A grim image, but a necessary tool of war
The Ottawa Citizen, March 13, 2006




In the sterile language of military supply, it is known as a "pouch, human remains." To just about everyone else, it is a potent signifier of wartime casualty called a "body bag."

As Canadian fatalities mount in Afghanistan, the body bag is no longer just an abstraction cited by protesters to warn against war.

It is also, increasingly, an important piece of combat equipment for Canadian troops, 10 of whom have been lost on the mission since 2002.

Few other expressions in the vocabulary of modern warfare are so charged as body bag.

Since the Vietnam War, when the term first entered the public dialogue, body bags have been cited as signs of impending death. Those opposed to war invariably predict that young men and women will be coming home in body bags. When the military buys more bags from contractors to replenish its stock, the quantity ordered is suspected of being a rough prediction of how many will die.

In the first Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon was accused of glossing the deaths of its troops by adopting "human remains pouch" as a more decorous alternative to the slang phrase body bag. In fact, the name was taken from a standardized list of military supplies used by NATO. It is a functional, if clinical, description that has been in use since the Korean War.

Some opponents of the Iraq conflict have claimed that even the term human remains pouch has been dropped in favour of the more palatable "transfer tube." There is, however, no clear evidence that anyone in the U.S. military has ever used the expression publicly. The story appears to be an urban legend that vaulted onto the Internet in 2003, when the Toronto Star reported, without citing a source, that the Pentagon had "sanitized" body bags by calling them transfer tubes.

Canada's Department of National Defence says it has not bought human remains pouches since 1999, when it ordered a shipment of 2,000 from FELLFAB Products, a Hamilton, Ont. military supplier. The department paid $146,285 -- about $73 for each bag -- according to contracting records.

There is no limit to the product shelf life and since Canadian Forces deaths are still relatively rare, there has been no need to restock, said DND spokeswoman Liz Hodges.

To the people who make them, body bags are just another textile product that must be filled to DND specifications, no different from the tents or truck canopies, says Glen Fell, president of FELLFAB.

"We see them in the raw material form," Mr. Fell says. "We don't see them with any mystique or aura around their final application. Somebody's got to make them."

A small Quebec company called Finnie Manufacturing has also filled small orders from DND for the bags in the past.

"It's not a big seller, fortunately," says Finnie's plant manager Linda Cobbett. "Fifty to 60 is a big order for us."

Finnie's bags are made from a thick olive-green PVC plastic, 228 centimetres long, with a heavy-duty zipper and six handles -- one on each corner and two in the middle. Empty, they weigh about 31/2 kilograms. They can be carried by helicopter if necessary.

One misconception about body bags is that they're disposed of after use. They are designed to be reused, Ms. Cobbett says. The human remains are placed inside a disposable liner, also zippered, and made of an impermeable polyethylene fabric. The liners fit inside the heavier pouch.

The bags produced at Finnie's factory outside Montreal are mostly sold to the RCMP and Health Canada, Ms. Cobbett says. But the company has also processed DND orders.

The body bag from companies like Finnie and FELLFAB are the first step along a path the military follows when a Canadian soldier is killed.

On the battlefield, the remains are typically transferred into body bags for transport. In Afghanistan, the remains of Canadian soldiers are typically taken to the U.S.-run morgue at the Kandahar airfield.

The corpse is wrapped in a sheet, then in plastic, and is then placed in a transfer case -- an aluminum coffin. The corpse is to be arranged to "create an appearance of rest and composure."

As soon as possible, the dead are flown to the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.

DND usually sends a civilian mortician to Landstuhl to help prepare the body for the travel. The process is done as quickly as possible. With long flights, decay can become a factor. The Canadian Forces own refrigerated caskets, but they weigh about 360 kilograms with a body inside and must be moved by forklift and conveyer belts. They are rarely used.

Instead, the bodies are typically moved in aluminum caskets -- the Canadian military calls them "transit containers," possibly the term that led to the myth of the transfer tube. The caskets are draped with Canadian flags for the trip home.

Unlike the U.S. military, the Canadian Forces allow media coverage of the last step in the repatriation process, when the caskets are unloaded from the transport planes.

After arrival in Trenton, the bodies are autopsied by an Ontario coroner before they are turned over to a funeral home chosen by the next of kin.

The family can choose a military funeral or opt for a more private affair.