The exercise, conducted by soldiers in North Carolina, revisited battlefield temporary interment procedures last used on a significant scale during the Korean War, when nearly 37,000 US personnel were killed between 1950 and 1953.
According to the Army, the training focused on digging and filling mass burial trenches while preserving human remains for identification and eventual repatriation to the United States.
During the exercise, operators used a D6 bulldozer to excavate trenches, carefully controlling the blade to allow loose soil to fall into the burial sites without compacting the ground. Model skeletons and sealed water containers were placed inside the trenches to assess whether the weight of the soil could damage remains.
Each burial plot consisted of five trenches designed to accommodate approximately 100 bodies. One trench was excavated in an hour and 15 minutes, allowing military planners to evaluate the potential scale of the operation.
The US Army estimated that an engineering company equipped with eight bulldozers and four military excavators could dig and fill enough trenches to accommodate up to 2,400 bodies per day if operating around the clock.
The military described the exercise as a test of the feasibility of battlefield temporary interment, acknowledging that the United States has not carried out such operations at this scale since the Korean War.
The preparations come amid mounting concerns over a possible escalation with Iran, as Admiral Brad Cooper, the US military’s top commander in the Middle East, has reportedly briefed Donald Trump on resuming aggression against Iran.