FORT BRAGG, N.C. — In a sobering acknowledgment of the realities of potential large-scale conflict, the U.S. Army recently conducted extensive temporary burial drills, practicing a grim procedure not widely exercised in decades: temporarily interring fallen soldiers when immediate evacuation is impossible.

Code-named “Dragon Covenant,” the exercise took place at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, involving roughly 130 religious support personnel, including military chaplains, alongside engineering and mortuary affairs units. During the drill, participants used simulated remains—skeletal models and sealed water jugs—to test burial speeds, ground pressure resistance, and the structural preservation of remains.

Adapting Doctrine to Battlefield Realities

The exercise highlighted critical gaps in current military manuals. Initially, the doctrine mandated a 2.1-meter (7-foot) interval between burial trenches. However, engineers quickly realized that this space was too narrow for bulldozers to operate safely without risking driving over previously buried remains. Consequently, the spacing had to be widened to approximately 2.7 meters.

Speed is paramount in high-intensity combat. Military estimates suggest that an engineering company equipped with eight bulldozers and four excavators could temporarily bury up to 2,400 remains per day under continuous operation.

Balancing Logistics and Morale

The shift in training stems from a sobering realization: the rapid evacuation protocols that defined the past two decades of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan—backed by absolute U.S. air superiority—may not be feasible in a future large-scale war against a peer adversary.

While current joint directives prioritize immediate evacuation, temporary burial is authorized when safety hazards or a lack of transport assets prevent it. This creates a severe logistical dilemma: refrigerated trucks required to preserve remains must compete with the critical cooling needs of food and medicine for living troops.

Furthermore, with fewer than 400 active-duty mortuary affairs specialists across the U.S. Army, frontline combat units are being trained to form five-person recovery teams to handle and transport remains to collection points.

Honoring the Fallen Under Fire

Conducting mass temporary burials also transforms how the military honors the dead. With continuous round-the-clock burials and intensive combat operations, individual traditional funerals and formal identifications are often impossible. Chaplains during the drill focused on maintaining dignity, offering continuous prayers even as bulldozers filled the trenches. Army leadership also noted that psychological and physical support plans must be established to prevent burnout among religious support teams facing mass casualties.

The last time the U.S. Army executed large-scale temporary battlefield burials on this scale was during the Korean War, which later led to the massive repatriation effort known as "Operation Glory" in 1954.

The lessons learned from the Dragon Covenant exercise will be integrated into updated military field manuals, with follow-up integrated drills scheduled for next spring.

"Whether we can bring every soldier home with dignity depends entirely on how well we prepare before the worst-case scenario strikes," said Master Sgt. Delbert Luide, mortuary affairs supervisor for the 3rd Infantry Division Support Command.

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