Faces of War: Iraq, the Road to Heaven or Hell

“I see the faces of war every night in my nightmares. I see the faces of the soldiers and the story that they want to tell.” --Michael Foster, Specialist, Mortuary Affairs

Faces of War: Iraq, the Road to Heaven or Hell is a story of a small team of eight soldiers who work in Mortuary Affairs whose mission is that no fallen soldier be left behind. They continue to put themselves through dangerous hostile situations to recover their fallen comrades and return their remains to their waiting families.

Their high-pressure job is a witness to those soldiers’ final hours. Their physical bodies tell the story of their death and their heroic acts to others and for our country.

In this seven-month mission, this team processes over 600 corpses of all nationalities, both friendly and non-friendly. The team also unearths a 200-man-mass gravesite of a slaughtered village. Their trials and tribulations will become yours as you are put into the firefights of the desert, the “Hero Missions” for search and recovery, and the personal connection of processing their friends.

Faces of War is a story that needs to be told for those who can no longer speak. The Fallen Soldier is given a voice, and the soldiers who cared for their remains are able to share their pain and anger at the war and their losses. In “Faces of War,” the story evolves from the battlefields, the villages, the mortuary, and the day-to-day lives of the soldier.

One soldier, Michael Foster, tells the story of his wartime duty and brings the reader into the real life of boots on the sand, bloody carnage, dark times, and the life of the common soldier in an insane situation. Michael tells this story from his heart with the utmost respect for those who lost their lives.

This is the real story that the media and the government have taken away from our country. This is the story of the ugliness of war and the compassion of a few who carried those fallen soldiers’ message.

May you read this story with understanding, sympathy for the families, anger for those lost lives, and a realization that those lives were not lost for nothing.