US Army conducted rare test of mass burial capabilities, not used since Korean War, at Fort Bragg

The U.S. Army ran a rare large-scale exercise at Fort Bragg testing its ability to carry out mass burials, a practice it hasn’t used since the Korean War, in preparation for a hypothetical war involving mass casualties.The U.S.’s air supremacy, logistical advancements, and relatively low casualties scattered across a longer time period have spared the U.S. from having to carry out mass burials, instead being able to take bodies home individually for proper burial. As the U.S. military changes its focus towards large-scale combat operations, it has begun likewise preparing for large-scale casualties and its ability to bury a large number of corpses at once. It carried out its first openly disclosed exercise testing this ability at scale, Phase II of Operation Dragon Covenant, earlier this month.Sgt. 1st Class Delbert Ruede, the senior fatality management NCO for the 3rd Corps Sustainment Command, stressed that the Army was prioritizing a respect for the dead in the operation. “This exercise allowed us to take a critical look at how we respect, honor, and systematically manage our fallen in a high-intensity conflict,” Ruede said.“If we went to war tomorrow, we would be making this up as we went along,” he added. “What we are doing here is taking a scientific, field-tested approach so that we can maintain positive control and respectfully care for our fallen.”The exercise was carried out by soldiers from the 3rd CSC, the 20th Engineer Brigade, and unit ministry teams, as well as preventive medicine teams and fatality management specialists. For realism, the exercise used simulated skeletal models and sealed water containers to simulate human remains.The burials in mass graves are only intended to be temporary, and a key objective of the exercise was to evaluate whether the bulldozers and other modern earthmoving equipment used for backfilling could carry out the task without crushing or otherwise causing damage to the remains. This is so forensic teams can return at a future date once combat operations have ended or slowed down, at which point the bodies will be steadily repatriated back home for permanent burial.Given its status as historically bearing the brunt of combat casualties, the Army’s mortuary affairs program has been recognized as the most established of the six branches. Given the lack of need to handle mass casualties over nearly the past 75 years, the 54th Quartermaster Company is currently the Army’s only active-duty MA unit. The remaining six are reservists.News of the exercise set off a panic on social media, with speculation rife that the operation was a dress rehearsal for an imminent ground operation in Iran. Framing of the operation was often accompanied by the latest news of a possible escalation in the war with Iran.Despite these fears, the Army framed the exercise as purely an operation to test capabilities that had grown rusty for lack of need. The kinds of operations and escalations against Iran that would be undertaken wouldn’t involve exposing troops to the number of casualties that Phase II of Operation Dragon Covenant was targeting, especially if the highly lopsided casualty ratios seen earlier in the war were anything to go off of.The Army touted the operation as a success, exposing flaws in its established doctrine of mass burials. Previous doctrine called for a standard burial plot of five parallel trenches holding 100 bodies each, with 10 laid on each side of the trench. A seven-foot corridor was supposed to separate each row, but the personnel found this inadequate to accommodate modern equipment.“We realized quickly that the existing measurements in the book didn’t accommodate the physical reality of the equipment,” Ruede said. “To prevent running over the remains, we expanded the trench to a 15-foot width and maintained a nine-foot pillar of undisturbed soil between each trench. That undisturbed pillar allows the dozer to drive along the center corridor and cast dirt inward to backfill without exerting direct downward pressure on the remains.”The exercise was also able to vastly cut down on the speed at which the mass graves were dug, going from around three hours per trench in previous exploratory trials to just one hour and 15 minutes.“Backfilling without desecrating the remains is where the real skill lies,” 1st Lt. Connor Thompson, an engineer officer with the 27th Engineer Battalion, said. “Every operator has a different skill set, and soil conditions play a huge factor. Doing this in dry sand is completely different from frozen ground, clay, or mud. Getting our operators actual stick time on this specific task gives us data rather than assumptions.”All in all, the exercise found that an engineering company with eight bulldozers and four High Mobility Engineer Excavators could bury up to 2,400 corpses every 24 hours, given continuous operations.The operation didn’t just cover the technical elements of mass burials either. A key element was the spiritual dimension, with 130 religious support personnel participating, including those serving in units such as the 82nd Airborne Division, the 101st Airborne Division, and Special Forces.Phase II of Operation Dragon Covenant even began with an invocation to consecrate the simulated burial ground from Chaplain (Maj.) Warwick Fuller, a chaplain with the 20th Engineer Brigade.USS SPRUANCE BREAKS RECORD FOR LONGEST DEPLOYED DESTROYER SINCE WWII“Dragon Covenant was an opportunity to exercise religious support for fatality management operations from initial remains recovery to temporary interment,” Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Ruska, chaplain for the 3rd CSC, said in a statement. “In a high-intensity, contested combat environment, fatality management teams cannot stop a 24-hour interment operation for individualized religious gravesite services. UMTs must advise commands on the most effective practice to integrate religious support for fatality management seamlessly without interrupting the flow of operations while honoring the fallen.”Units involved in fatality management have been identified as experiencing some of the highest stress rates in the military. The Army’s article about the operation said doctrinal planning in the operation indicated that units supporting the mass burials could experience physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion within four to six hours. This underscored the need to rapidly rotate personnel involved in such operations.