US Army Rehearses Mass Battlefield Burials

The U.S. Army has trained engineers, medical personnel, chaplains and fatality-management specialists in North Carolina to prepare temporary burial sites for a potential high-casualty conflict, a capability it has not used at scale since the Korean War. The drills tested how quickly heavy equipment could dig and fill trenches while protecting remains so fallen service members can later be identified and returned to their families. The Army says crews averaged about 75 minutes to prepare a trench for 20 remains and estimated that an engineering company with the necessary equipment could handle up to 2,400 remains in a day. Exercises also exposed practical issues with existing site guidelines, which the Army says will inform future procedures.