The Army is preparing for a future war in which thousands of fallen soldiers may have to be buried temporarily near the battlefield. Such a conflict could make recovering bodies and returning them home impossible until the fighting ends.

The training brought together Army chaplains, engineers, and mortuary affairs specialists. They rehearsed what would happen if the military could no longer provide individual funeral ceremonies for every fallen service member.

Religious leaders also considered how to honor multiple soldiers from different faith traditions while burial operations continued around the clock. The exercise was reported by Military Times.

Based on the exercise, the Army estimates that engineers using eight bulldozers and four excavators could dig and fill temporary graves for as many as 2,400 fallen soldiers within 24 hours.

“Military planners predict casualties in the hundreds if not thousands each day of combat,” an Army publication on religious support during large scale combat operations warned.

The publication’s authors concluded that religious support teams were not prepared for the expected pace of combat or the resulting number of casualties. Those concerns are now shaping practical Army training.

Findings from Operation Dragon Covenant will be used to revise military doctrine covering fatality management and religious support during casualty care. That work will include procedures for temporary battlefield burials.

The Army has not announced when those doctrinal revisions will take effect. Another phase of Operation Dragon Covenant is planned for spring 2027.

The exercise included consultation with chaplains representing faith groups with relatively few members. The discussions addressed how temporary burial sites could be treated before fallen soldiers were placed in the ground.

“We consulted with Chaplains from various low-density faith groups for advisement,” Ruska said. “The consensus was that by consecrating the site before remains are placed in the ground reassures families that their loved ones are treated with reverence, dignity and honor despite the inability to provide a memorial ceremony in a contested combat environment.”

During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, American forces generally maintained the air superiority and transportation routes required to evacuate their dead. That allowed the military to avoid burying fallen troops near the battlefield.

The military also developed an extensive casualty evacuation network through Germany. That network included Ramstein Air Base and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and was used to transport wounded troops back to the United States.

A prolonged war against a peer or near peer adversary could look very different if that enemy were capable of disrupting transportation routes. Under those circumstances, fallen soldiers could remain on the battlefield for extended periods.

The war in Ukraine has shown how sustained combat can prevent militaries from recovering their dead. Russian forces have buried unidentified soldiers in collective graves, while Ukrainian recovery teams have spent months searching contested battlefields for remains.

The U.S. military has not relied on mass burial graves since the Korean War. According to a historical Army account, mountainous terrain, brutal winter temperatures, and constantly shifting frontlines made recovering fallen troops and returning them home tremendously difficult.

Historic accounts from the Korean War describe some fallen troops being buried in artillery craters or foxholes. The experience reflects the conditions Army planners are now attempting to address before another conflict produces casualties on a massive scale.

“If we went to war tomorrow, we would be making this up as we went along,” Sgt. 1st Class Delbert Ruede, the senior fatality management leader for the 3rd Corps Sustainment Command, said in the Army release.

“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.”