Article: Death-scene cleaner honed skills in war zone.(Q)

By David Zucchino

Los Angeles Times

OPELIKA, Ala.

He mowed his yard, refilled his prescriptions and mopped his living room floor. Then the elderly man went into his bedroom in this placid Alabama town, sat on his bed and fired a bullet into his head.

It fell to Benjamin Lichtenwalner, an expert in the aftermath of violent death, to erase all signs of the suicide. Blood and tissue stained the floor, walls, ceiling and curtains. A round from a .44 Smith & Wesson had left a hole in a ceiling fan blade.

Lichtenwalner was part of the first Marine mortuary unit ever sent into combat. He handled the corpses of hundreds of war victims ...

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