Mortuary Affairs

Mortuary Affairs is a service within the United States Army Quartermaster Corps tasked with the retrieval, identification, transportation, and burial of deceased American and American-allied military personnel. Until 1991, it was known as the Graves Registration Service (GRS or GRREG). The Graves Registration Service was created several months after the United States entered World War I.

The current Army Military Occupational Specialty for the career field is 90A (a general code for officers across the Quartermaster Corps) and 92M for enlisted personnel.

Mortuary Affairs is responsible for retrieval, identification, transportation, and burial of American soldiers. Retrieval can be further subdivided into:

The role of the Mortuary Affairs service is legally defined in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (Specifically, it is defined in 10 USC, subtitle A, Chapter 75, Subchapter I, section 1471.)

Mortuary Affairs has historically been tied with investigation of war crimes. Following World War II, Graves Registration Personnel were instructed to forward all pathological evidence indicating war crimes to the War Crimes Commission.

The Mortuary Affairs Creed is 'Dignity, Reverence, Respect.'

In the Seminole Wars and Mexican–American War, American soldiers were buried near where they fell, with no effort made to return and little effort made to identify the dead. The American Civil War marked the first time the United States made a concerted effort to identify dead soldiers. General Order No. 33 specified that field commanders were responsible for identification and burial efforts. However, these efforts were not well organized or executed, and were often given low priority. (Commanders were more concerned with winning battles than with the disposition of dead soldiers). After the war, remains of Union soldiers were disinterred and reburied in National Cemeteries.

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