On a drop zone at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the U.S. Army spent part of October rehearsing something it has not had to do at scale in more than 70 years: burying its own dead where they fall.
The exercise, called Operation Dragon Covenant Phase II, was built around a grim premise. For two decades in Iraq and Afghanistan, American control of the skies meant the fallen could be flown home within days. In a war against a peer adversary, that may no longer be possible. So the Army is reviving a skill that has largely withered since the Korean War: temporary field burial, meant to protect sanitation, morale and the dignity of the dead when evacuation simply isn’t an option.
The drill was led by the 3rd Corps Sustainment Command alongside the 20th Engineer Brigade, preventive medicine teams, chaplains and mortuary affairs specialists. Some 130 chaplains and religious personnel practiced conducting rapid burial services under combat conditions.
The machinery tells the story of how much has changed. Old doctrine called for a backhoe to spend roughly three hours carving out a trench for 10 bodies. At Fort Bragg, crews running D6 bulldozers dug a wider trench, about 4.5 meters across and large enough for 20 bodies, in an hour and 15 minutes. By the Army’s own math, a single engineer company working around the clock could dig and fill trenches for as many as 2,400 bodies in 24 hours. It is a number that speaks quietly to the scale of loss planners now consider possible.
No human remains were used. Skeleton models and sealed water containers stood in for the dead, zipped into body bags. Bulldozer operators practiced backfilling at careful angles so the weight of the earth would not crush what lay beneath, preserving the chance for forensic teams to one day reopen the graves, identify the fallen and bring them home for permanent burial. The exercise also turned up gaps in the rulebook: published spacing between rows, soldiers found, was too narrow to drive a bulldozer without disturbing the trenches beside it.
The preparations extend to the enemy as well. In keeping with the Geneva Conventions, the Army is planning to identify and bury enemy dead with the same care, leaving open the possibility of returning them to their countries.
A third phase is scheduled for spring 2027 and will add security, medical facilities and an updated collection point for remains.
The exercise unfolds as the U.S. military builds up its forces in the Middle East. U.S. forces are reportedly ready to launch a major strike on Iran within 96 hours of an order from President Donald Trump, and the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit are heading to the region, adding thousands of troops and sailors as Trump weighs his next move.
