![]() ![]() This incident, the result of a misidentification by Russian-backed separatists, killed 298 people from 10 countries as the plane disintegrated over several miles of open farmland. On the morning of July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was struck by a surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine. Recent history has shown the implications of high-casualty events, and it is essential that American forces are prepared mentally and organizationally to win in the face of tragedy. Finally, planners must specify organic mortuary affairs capabilities within their organization that can be flexed to fulfill a need beyond what modern experience has demonstrated. Second, mortuary affairs cannot be a “hand wave” during training exercises it must be exercised as a crucial function in maintaining a unit’s operational effectiveness in combat. First, to lessen the blow of casualties sustained in a peer conflict, accurate casualty expectations must be part of formations’ training and organizational culture. They can achieve this goal in three key ways. Commanders must integrate realistic casualty expectations into their formations and institute plans that will minimize the impact of high-casualty conflicts on their ability to accomplish objectives. This disparity poses a threat to the future operational effectiveness of American forces. As a result, operational commanders now have unrealistic expectations of loss and a lack of mortuary affairs capability available to them. American lives were sacrificed in all these conflicts, yet these lives were lost at orders of magnitude less than what is typical in a war with a peer adversary. Panama, Grenada, the first Gulf War, Bosnia, and the ongoing engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan all have pitted lesser powers against the U.S. Fortunately, the United States has not faced such a challenge since 1945 and has enjoyed an unprecedented streak of asymmetric conflicts since the 1980s. These considerable casualties belie a state of conflict that is largely foreign to the modern American military and public alike. Secretary Powell’s remark highlights an enduring facet of high-intensity conflict between peer adversaries: Past wars between Great Powers generated enormous casualties that far outpaced the ability of the United States to process Servicemembers’ remains and return them to their families. ![]() and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in. We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly. ![]()
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