Their son, a soldier in the United States Army had shot his wife and then turned the gun upon himself. It was Rivero’s job to deliver the news. “It’s pretty upsetting to see a family fall apart in front of you,” Rivero says. “There’s nothing you can do but read them the official news.”
Death can be quick and cruel. Master Sgt. Rivero knows that better than most. His job never seems to get any easier. Now it looks as though it’s about to get even harder. Assigned to the 21st Theatre Support Command, the main logistical unit behind operations encompassing both Afghanistan and the Middle East, Rivero’s morgue is the central processing center for most American deaths in overseas combat zones and military bases. Today his office in Landstuhl, Germany, is gearing up for the prospect of full blown war. “Since 9/11 everything has changed,” he says. “We always have to have plenty of everything. We’ve actually expanded the mortuary.”
For this seasoned veteran who deals with the saddest of news, it’s a bittersweet time. Rivero, 41, is at the pinnacle of his career: In just a couple months, he will become the most senior enlisted man in the United States Army Department of Memorial Affairs. Yet as he discussed his job with NEWSWEEK in the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center Morgue, the burley, square-jawed soldier did something you rarely see around here. He took off his glasses, and quietly began to cry.
The flood of bodies won’t stop. Today, the morgue Rivero runs with his staff is almost full. After dipping to little more than 100 deaths per year after the U.S. began drawing down its troops in Europe in the mid to late 1990s, Rivero’s staff saw 255 bodies in the last fiscal year. (The Army uses the same bureaucratic budgetary calendar that goes from October of one year to the next.) The dead range from those who die in training accidents to old vets living in Europe to a growing sector: those who perish in accidents or enemy fire on the battlefield. Already 72 bodies have passed through the building since the new fiscal year began last October.
In the back of the morgue, four black hawk helicopter pilots killed in a crash in Afghanistan recently lie on gurneys, their feet sticking out from under white sheets. The victim of a car accident in Qatar is in the autopsy room, his young muscular body torn and broken. It’s Rivero’s job to put them all back together before sending them home.
Still, it is not the prospect of more deaths that is bringing the tears, or the idea that Rivero may have to go into a danger zone seeping with chemical weapons, and laboriously decontaminate suffocated bodies for shipment home. (“If we have to go to war in Iraq, I’m ready to do it, my President and Commander and Chief has good intentions and I’m going to support him,” he says, unflinchingly.) No, it is when he tries to put into words what his job means to him that he gets emotional. Why it is, for instance, that he is willing to stand in the freezing rain in the airport for hours, to properly position an honor guard of soldiers waiting to receive a body; why he travels the world putting his life at risk to pick up the remains of someone who won’t be coming back no matter what anyone does. “Everyone gets the same treatment, from a four star general to the lowest private,” he says. “Death isn’t by rank. We do our job with reverence and respect.
“A lot of people say ‘I couldn’t do what you do,’” he continues. He reaches into his desk and pulls up a note scrawled on yellow paper. “Thanks for your actions while receiving the aircrew from Bagram,” it reads. “I may have seemed upset by the loss of my friend. Your professional and personal care was evident.” It’s notes like these, from hardened special operators and pilots, that break him down.
“Hey, it’s not easy to keep your sanity in this job,” he says. “You’ve got to have something to hold onto. I’m lucky I got three kids… It’s pretty sad that we’re busy. But I do have a lot of faith in God and that helps me out a lot. I stress safety with my guys. I put weather reports on the door. There are always going to be accidents but I stress safety. I do what I can.”
Now he pulls a small plastic container full of sand out of his drawer. “Look at this,” he says. “This is from Afghanistan. Someone gave it to me in thanks for handling his buddy. I’ll tell you, when I get stuff like this–I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get a plaque like that.”
Back home, Rivero knows that Colin Powell, the U.S. Congress and the United Nations are debating the fate of Iraq and tens of thousands of soldiers. He’s happy to leave it to them: He can’t save the lives. But no matter what happens, as long as Rivero is around, he will always push for the principle he has devoted his life to: that “the U.S. military will leave no one behind.”
