Army Tests Emergency Burial Plans for Future Battlefields
The U.S. Army is preparing for a difficult possibility: large numbers of fallen service members may not be able to leave a battlefield quickly during a major war.
In a training exercise in North Carolina, soldiers practiced digging temporary burial trenches, protecting remains, and recording information needed for later identification. The goal was to make sure fallen service members could be treated with care until they could be recovered and returned to their families.
Preparing for a Large-Scale Conflict
During recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, strong control of the air allowed military teams to move remains out of combat zones and back to the United States through mortuary services. A future conflict involving large numbers of troops and heavy fighting could make that process much harder.
The exercise, known as Operation Dragon Covenant, focused on temporary burial operations during a high-intensity conflict. Engineers, medical prevention teams, chaplains, and specialists who manage military deaths worked together to test the process.
Temporary burial is not meant to replace the final return of remains. Instead, it provides a way to protect the dead when transportation is unsafe, unavailable, or delayed.
Testing Equipment and Burial Trenches
Engineer soldiers used heavy construction equipment to dig and refill trenches. The mock remains included skeletal models and water-filled containers. These items were placed in the trenches to represent human remains and to test whether the equipment could complete the work without causing damage.
The trenches must be built in a way that allows future teams to locate, identify, and recover the remains. That process could happen after fighting ends and conditions become safer.
Army guidance calls for temporary burial areas to include five parallel trenches. Together, the trenches are designed to hold up to 100 bodies, with ten remains placed along each side of each trench.
Earlier tests using regular backhoes showed that crews could dig one trench, holding about ten remains, in roughly three hours. During the latest exercise, operators used D6 bulldozers to dig a trench large enough for 20 remains in an average of one hour and 15 minutes.
That faster pace could allow one properly equipped engineer company to dig and cover burial trenches for as many as 2,400 remains in a 24-hour period if the work continued without stopping.
Updating Army Instructions
The exercise also showed that some written instructions do not match the equipment now used by Army engineers.
Existing guidance called for seven feet of space between rows of trenches. The soldiers found that this distance was too narrow for a bulldozer to pass without disturbing nearby burial areas. The Army plans to use this finding, along with other lessons from the exercise, to improve its future instructions.
These changes could help commanders plan more accurately during a mass-casualty event. They could also reduce the risk of damaging remains during burial or later recovery.
Rules for Respecting the Dead
Military rules require human remains to be evacuated whenever battlefield conditions make that possible. Temporary graves may be used when remains cannot be moved safely because of enemy fire, a lack of transportation, or contamination from chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons.
Every person placed in a temporary grave must be treated with dignity. This includes American service members, civilians, and enemy combatants. Any available identifying information must be preserved so that the remains can later be connected to the correct person and returned to loved ones.
International wartime rules also require military forces to record enemy dead and collect information that may help identify them. Cremation is generally not allowed unless it is needed for health reasons or follows religious requirements.
Planning for Religious Needs
Chaplains and religious support teams used the exercise to consider how spiritual care could continue during nonstop burial operations.
In a dangerous combat zone, teams may not be able to pause work for individual religious ceremonies. They may also be unable to learn the faith of every person who has died.
Religious advisers from several less common faith traditions helped develop a possible solution. The plan calls for the burial site to be consecrated before remains are placed in the ground. This would provide a shared act of respect when individual graveside services are not possible.
The approach is intended to reassure families that their loved ones were treated with reverence, dignity, and honor, even under the most difficult battlefield conditions.
More Training Ahead
The Army plans to continue the exercise with another phase that will add security teams, medical facilities, and a location for collecting and managing remains.
By practicing the work before a crisis occurs, military planners hope to create a clear system for protecting the dead, preserving identification information, and supporting eventual recovery. The training also gives commanders a better understanding of the equipment, personnel, space, and religious support needed during a major conflict.
The U.S. Army is preparing for a difficult possibility: large numbers of fallen service members may not be able to leave a battlefield quickly during a major war.
In a training exercise in North Carolina, soldiers practiced digging temporary burial trenches, protecting remains, and recording information needed for later identification. The goal was to make sure fallen service members could be treated with care until they could be recovered and returned to their families.
Preparing for a Large-Scale Conflict
During recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, strong control of the air allowed military teams to move remains out of combat zones and back to the United States through mortuary services. A future conflict involving large numbers of troops and heavy fighting could make that process much harder.
The exercise, known as Operation Dragon Covenant, focused on temporary burial operations during a high-intensity conflict. Engineers, medical prevention teams, chaplains, and specialists who manage military deaths worked together to test the process.
Temporary burial is not meant to replace the final return of remains. Instead, it provides a way to protect the dead when transportation is unsafe, unavailable, or delayed.
Testing Equipment and Burial Trenches
Engineer soldiers used heavy construction equipment to dig and refill trenches. The mock remains included skeletal models and water-filled containers. These items were placed in the trenches to represent human remains and to test whether the equipment could complete the work without causing damage.
The trenches must be built in a way that allows future teams to locate, identify, and recover the remains. That process could happen after fighting ends and conditions become safer.
Army guidance calls for temporary burial areas to include five parallel trenches. Together, the trenches are designed to hold up to 100 bodies, with ten remains placed along each side of each trench.
Earlier tests using regular backhoes showed that crews could dig one trench, holding about ten remains, in roughly three hours. During the latest exercise, operators used D6 bulldozers to dig a trench large enough for 20 remains in an average of one hour and 15 minutes.
That faster pace could allow one properly equipped engineer company to dig and cover burial trenches for as many as 2,400 remains in a 24-hour period if the work continued without stopping.
Updating Army Instructions
The exercise also showed that some written instructions do not match the equipment now used by Army engineers.
Existing guidance called for seven feet of space between rows of trenches. The soldiers found that this distance was too narrow for a bulldozer to pass without disturbing nearby burial areas. The Army plans to use this finding, along with other lessons from the exercise, to improve its future instructions.
These changes could help commanders plan more accurately during a mass-casualty event. They could also reduce the risk of damaging remains during burial or later recovery.
Rules for Respecting the Dead
Military rules require human remains to be evacuated whenever battlefield conditions make that possible. Temporary graves may be used when remains cannot be moved safely because of enemy fire, a lack of transportation, or contamination from chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons.
Every person placed in a temporary grave must be treated with dignity. This includes American service members, civilians, and enemy combatants. Any available identifying information must be preserved so that the remains can later be connected to the correct person and returned to loved ones.
International wartime rules also require military forces to record enemy dead and collect information that may help identify them. Cremation is generally not allowed unless it is needed for health reasons or follows religious requirements.
Planning for Religious Needs
Chaplains and religious support teams used the exercise to consider how spiritual care could continue during nonstop burial operations.
In a dangerous combat zone, teams may not be able to pause work for individual religious ceremonies. They may also be unable to learn the faith of every person who has died.
Religious advisers from several less common faith traditions helped develop a possible solution. The plan calls for the burial site to be consecrated before remains are placed in the ground. This would provide a shared act of respect when individual graveside services are not possible.
The approach is intended to reassure families that their loved ones were treated with reverence, dignity, and honor, even under the most difficult battlefield conditions.
More Training Ahead
The Army plans to continue the exercise with another phase that will add security teams, medical facilities, and a location for collecting and managing remains.
By practicing the work before a crisis occurs, military planners hope to create a clear system for protecting the dead, preserving identification information, and supporting eventual recovery. The training also gives commanders a better understanding of the equipment, personnel, space, and religious support needed during a major conflict.