Spotlight

Bringing Our Fallen Home

When a U.S. service member dies overseas, the utmost care goes into making sure they are brought home with dignity, that their families are taken care of and the circumstances of their death are investigated. A large team of dedicated individuals carries out this sacred mission.

Care, Service & Support

The effort to bring our fallen home from overseas is a massive endeavor coordinated by Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations. It involves a lot of caring people, from civilian mortuary specialists to service members and liaisons who support the families of the fallen.

Inside the Process of Bringing Our Overseas Fallen Home

When a U.S. service member dies while on duty overseas, a massive endeavor begins to get that person home with dignity and respect.

How Fallen Service Members' Personal Effects Are Returned to Family

Born out of the tragedy of 9/11, the Joint Personal Effects Depot now plays a key role in receiving and safeguarding the personal effects of fallen service members and returning them to their loved ones.

Meet the Airmen Who Comfort Families of the Fallen During Dignified Transfers

Families of U.S. service members who die while on duty overseas face unimaginable grief, as well as a lot of questions that need to be answered to bring their loved one home. A vast network of caring folks based at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, helps them through that process.

Preparing Uniforms for the Fallen

Uniforms Section Tour

Preparing the American Flag

From Crime Scenes to the DNA Lab

As the federal government's main forensic investigative service, the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System investigates deaths, performs toxicology testing, improves military readiness and identifies service members - past and present - through advanced DNA testing.

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Operation: Colony Glacier

The 52 service members who died in a Nov. 22, 1952, plane crash on Mount Gannett, Alaska, were never forgotten — but for more than 70 years, their loved ones had no remains to grieve over or bury.

That changed after an Alaska National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk crew conducting routine training in 2012 spotted aircraft wreckage on Colony Glacier. Recovery operations confirmed it was debris from the Air Force C-124 that crashed six decades earlier with 42 airmen, eight soldiers, one Marine and one sailor on board.

Every summer since, service members and civilians have searched the area in an effort to find the remains of the crash victims, identify them and bring them home. That joint mission is known as Operation Colony Glacier.

Death Probes, Drug Testing & More

Investigating deaths is a large part of what medical examiners do, but when it comes to the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System, the various jobs carried out by its experts encompass so much more than that.

Whether it's providing training aids for military working dogs, making sure service members are on the straight and narrow, or finding the reason behind a person's death, AFMES has a big job to do.